The Raspberry Pi 3 is about to be/is released with many of the same features as the Pine 64. On top of that, the Pine 64 is more than double the size of the Raspberry Pi with a board that is too thin, causing warping. It looks and feels "cheap". The board could have been laid out better with additional layers and, thus, thickness with components on both sides, reducing board size. The main selling point to me is that Raspberry Pi doesn't (yet) run Android. Other than that, they are not dissimilar enough to choose the pine 64 over the Pi.
If I had known about the Pi 3 when I found out about the Pine 64, I wouldn't have backed the pine 64.
Anyone else feel disappointed?
Are they really the same specs?
If anything, I am happy to bring another competitor to the market on microcomputers. I am also interested in where the Pine will go as far as accessories are concerned. Since the Pi is already in the market for a long while, maybe they will focus on another market.
It was thanks to the Pine I started looking into IoT too so..all in all I am happy. There is a new community around here, some are starters like me and some are more advanced.
Pi 3 also has other restrictions, such as a max of 1GB RAM and a slow Ethernet port that is routed via USB (so gigabit speeds cannot be achieved).
What the Raspberry Pi does have is a great community of users. It is up to us to make a similar community for the Pine64.
You have all rights to be disappointed, but I find your dissatisfaction with Pine more like problem with your expectations. This is very fresh project, there may be problems nobody realize yet. Everything have pros and cons.
I didn't get the board yet, so I can't say anything more.
I'm not suggesting that the Pi is better, but yes, my expectations were higher. It feels cheap. It's bigger than it needs to be and is rather flimsy. It could be better. It is just not what I was expecting.
My biggest complaint about the Pine though is nearly total lack of documentation (please don't direct me to the anemic wiki...). I'm struggling to find much of anything official. Most start up help is via posts in the forum by others that have figured it out. The Pi has massive amounts of official documentation. This needs to be corrected quickly.
03-25-2016, 02:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-25-2016, 02:21 PM by TerryB.)
I ordered the Rpi3 on day 1, received it 2 weeks later (from Britain) and using it with OpenElec and Kodi. Very happy with it. I have just ordered a second and it arrives Tuesday (9 days shipping, also from Britain). Meanwhile nothing on the Pine64 that I ordered Feb. 15 and was scheduled to ship no later than April 1st. Should have know that April 1st was a joke because I checked the order status and they moved the shipping date back to May (with no notice). Extreme lack of feedback and transparency by Pine64. Should have know given the Apple roots of the company.
the 1GB memory on the RasPi 3 is a deal breaker for me. Got's to hab me mo buncha RAMs.
