I purchased an unlocked Moto G Pure March 2022 for US$ 139 and it is still working well. Although it only has 3GB RAM, the eight Cortex-A53 processor cores seem powerful enough that it's never had any trouble browsing the web. I don't know how useful such a mobile phone would be for word processing and spreadsheets not to mention as a software development environment. At the same time it would be difficult to equip a Raspberry Pi with a touchscreen, audio speakers, 32GB SD card, GSM modem, GPS, charger, two video cameras and battery pack for the same price.Except a phone that can do what you describe does not cost $35 or $40, does it?, BTW a mobile is also "somewhat" general purpose... So anyone can run chromium directly on their mobile phones...
Last time I used a sub $100 cell phone, as in I paid full price for it, instead of a phone the cell carrier subsidized by locking me into a 2 year contract, could barely open a browser and display one of today's typical news web page with any sort of performance I could describe as responsive. And that was only a few months back, not years.
The GPIO further distinguishes the Pi from a phone.;
Around here the best value for the money is a box of chocolates from the local grocery.
Statistics: Posted by ejolson — Thu Jan 18, 2024 6:02 am