So lately I have been trying to figure out a PC for my mother and grandparents. I might try this idea for my dad too, but I gave him a little atom powered netbook and he’s happy enough with it so I may not bother. I need something small, low power, no heat, and won’t explode when you drop it. I need it to run linux or windows, be cheap, and run relatively quick enough to do youtube, google, and run an email client.
So my answer is a ras-pi. At least for now.
The way I see it is that getting a class 10 64GB SD card for each pi is going to be the actual cost. They have wifi now, can run ubuntu mate, and can do all sorts of everything rather easily that my family even wants to do. So what do you guys think? Good idea? I imagine having them strapped to the back of a monitor and a KB Mouse combo board like the Logitech one with the trackpad will be easy enough to keep altogether.
Well my idea here is that if it dies its literally 35 bucks, put in the SD card, and go. No extra little BS stuff and no dealing with incompatible drivers.
Solid plan. If value is the name of the game, pi’s are perfect for simple machines like that.
Heat dissipation on the pi 3 really does help. Get a little fanless aluminum case for it that’s also a giant heatsink and use velcro to attach it to the monitor.
The problem I see with this is multimedia performance in the browser is going to be lacking to say the least. I’m guessing they will want to use “the facebook” and thats a tall order even for the 3.
Check out pi-top, just google it as I’m too lazy to search an url in 5 promilles drunk.
Pro of those is that all you need is to upgrade the sbc whenever the time comed.
The only thing I can see that may be an issue is external connections. If you go with @khaudio 's suggestion and Velcro it to the back of the monitor you’ll probably want to get a USB hub to connect stuff like a camera. Otherwise you’ll have a small plastic box moving all over the desk which may or may not be an issue. The audio from the pi is pretty garbage too unless it’s through HDMI.
Formanything that needs a camera my grandmother has an ipad, as do all her friends. Anything trendy. This is just to get her a non p4 machine. For my mom, she has a use for usb stuff. So then I’d need a hub for her.