[geerlingguy]

There's also the Radxa X4 — Pi 4/5 form factor (tiny bit larger but not substantial), has a PoE HAT available, has 40-pin GPIO (with caveats, but it's basically a Pico strapped on the same board), and the N100's built-in GPU can run circles around the Pi or even RK3588 boards.

The efficiency isn't there, and you'll need to figure out a better cooling/case solution than the one Radxa ships, but I'm impressed by this little board.

If you can stretch your budget past $100 you can get a good brand new N100 or N305 system that will go further. Used gear is fine, but the power efficiency for anything in the $50-80 range used is pretty rough. Some people don't worry much about that, but in some parts of the world it can be $5+/month more to run older machines!

[throwup238]

> Some people don't worry much about that, but in some parts of the world it can be $5+/month more to run older machines!

California being one of the worst offenders, ironically. In SoCal my family and I pay (across several households) between $0.50/kWh and $0.99/kWh, so even a 15W idle can cost us at least $5 a month.

[wpm]

I think your thermal pad issue was why yours ran so hot, I got one recently in the second batch and I so far haven’t been able to get it over 65C.

The pad I got was about 1-1.25mm thick, not crumbly like yours was on video. I assume they figured out what the issue was with their supplier.

Still think the entire thermal design is whack, a single fan perpendicular to the board on the end could draw air through the heat sink as well as over the SSD on the top. Working on whipping up some 3D printable stuff once I get some time next week.

[geerlingguy]

Glad they finally sorted the thermal pad at least. Everyone in the first order batch I talked to (before it was sold out a while) had the exact same thermal pad. But yes, the heatsink design still has a few drawbacks that should definitely be adjusted in a revision!