[pantaloony]

I have a crappy model-or-two-old Asus Chromebox that runs Retroarch well and cost about as much as a Pi with trimmings back when I bought it new. Runs N64 just fine. 2GB RAM and a low-clocked dual-core Celeron. Actually with a RAM upgrade (doable) it’d make an Ok dev workstation if you avoid “webapps” and Electron and are comfortable with lighter editors rather than e.g. heavy Java IDEs, and can run your VMs and Dockers somewhere else. Admittedly a lot of caveats but would work for some people.

[jjice]

Old laptops are great for things that the RPi gets attention for. With a bit of hunting, you can get them dirt cheap, and the integrated monitor is a huge bonus.

[pantaloony]

The one thing I really miss using x86 boxes rather than Raspberries Pi is the dd-to-sdcard-and-boot workflow. Makes recovery easy, trivial to back up the exact software you’re running on one. If the whole thing goes up in a fire, buy another identical Pi, write a new sdcard, and you’re back in business.

But yeah, otherwise if you’re not using the io features you get a lot more bang-for-the-buck buying used low-end x86 gear.