[rcarmo]

64bit is great news (if only because I can target it with the same binaries), but only 512MB of RAM and no EMMC is disappointing, regardless of power budget constraints.

I have been using 3As because of the reduced size (and the full sized HDMI port, which comes in handy), so I hope those get updated to a 4-grade chipset —- I feel that there is a gap between the Compute Module and the A that needs filling.

[calin2k]

next we need a RPi4A with 2GB of ram, the full size HDMI, usb C and updated silicon

[idiotsecant]

At some point we have to ask what the raspberry pi platform is for - they used to be low budget, low cost, low power general purpose computing in an extremely small formfactor.

It seems like there's still one product, but increasing divergent use cases for that product.

[bityard]

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying, but it sounds like you're arguing against their strategy of having multiple variants of the Raspberry Pi for sale at the same time?

There have been a lot of commenters in this post basically complaining that there are too many Raspberry Pis. From a practical standpoint, I don't get the complaint (I mean, how does that personally harm them in any way?).

The Raspberry Pi foundation's mission is to increase technical literacy worldwide by making and selling very low-cost yet reasonably high-performance computers. They also do quite a lot of education and outreach themselves.

What people here seem to be forgetting is that these things take money and instead of spending time fundraising (a huge cost and time sink for most non-profits), they decided to tap into the maker and computer geek communities, as well as industry. When people like you and me buy these boards to play with or build into our projects, we are subsidizing all of the foundations design, education, outreach, activities. Also when companies build products and internal solutions around the Pis. The whole reason they still sell the (mostly) original Raspberry Pi board is because there are systems, processes, or fleets still using them. They'll continue to use them until a design change is required. As long as its relatively easy for the foundation to squeeze out a new batch every so often (all of the hard work of designing them is already done), what does it hurt?

[zitsarethecure]

I don't think we need to ask that at all. They make little computers for people to tinker and do interesting (or even boring) things with. The "diverging use cases" are a feature, not a bug.

[rcarmo]

That might well be the sweet spot, yes.