[_wmd]

Please do tell us about these better specced, better supported off-the-shelf commodity components!

Unless they're planning to fab 100 of these, chances are high that the retail margin on a Pi still leads to one of the cheapest BOM for a one-off project like this

[pero]

you do understand that 'better supported' in the case of the raspberrypi means that you are running a 32bit os? that's all they officially support - and have no plans to change

do you really think something or better and cheaper is impossible? the rpi is _the most overpriced sbc on the market_ particularly if you're not using it for raspbian (32bit only) and the module ecosystem

nanopi neo2 and rock64 are better and cheaper alternatives