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hpr_transcripts/hpr4146.txt
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Episode: 4146
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Title: HPR4146: Pi 5 - Some initial thoughts
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4146/hpr4146.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-25 20:14:40
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---
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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4146 from Monday the 24th of June 2024.
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Today's show is entitled, Pie Five Some Initial Thoughts.
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It is the 10th show of Kevin and is about 15 minutes long.
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It carries a clean flag.
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The summary is, after playing around with the pie for a couple of months,
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Kevin shares his experiences.
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Hello, hello, welcome to another episode of HPR.
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This is Kevin from the Tuxjam Podcast.
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And today I'm continuing on with my pie series with some thoughts on the Raspberry Pie Five.
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Now, the actual version I'm testing is the Raspberry Pie Five with the 8GB RAM.
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This is purchased with PyMaronis NVME connector and 512GB drive.
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Also including the Pie Five PSU.
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So the whole thing was purchased from PyMaroni for the grand total sum of £155.70.
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Hence, that also included postage.
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Now, let's just start off with the specs.
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So the specs in the Pie Five are 2.4GHz quad core 64-bit ARM.
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It has got a video core VII GPU.
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It has got two HDMI display outputs.
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The dual-band 802.11 AC Wi-Fi is a Wi-Fi 5.
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Bluetooth 5, microSD card slot, standard 2x USB 3 ports, 2x USB 2 ports,
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a gigabyte Ethernet, 2x 4-lane MIPI camera display transceiver.
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It's got PCIe 2 interface, just one.
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And again, that's what the NVME connector attaches through.
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And it maintains the USB-C for power supply.
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However, be warned, if you're using a PS4 or other similar power supply unit,
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it will actually come up with an error message and will tell you that you don't have enough power to run the Pie.
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And of course, a standard with the Raspberry Pi does have its 40-input output pin.
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And it also has for the first time ever, it has a dedicated power button.
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And for those of you who are kind of into the specs, you'll notice this is quite an improvement over the Pie 4.
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And certainly for those of us who purchased a Pie 400,
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we kind of generally found out that although it was a significant increase over its previous versions,
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it really wasn't a viable desktop PC replacement.
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So does the Pie 5 fare any better?
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In short, yes, it fares considerably better in the previous models and it's attempt to run as a replacement desktop PC.
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The first thing that I noticed was how quick it was from switching on to a graphical environment,
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a working graphical environment.
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Now I timed this in at 12 seconds.
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Now you wouldn't get the same speed.
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I don't believe with an SD card.
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That was with the SSD drive attached, the NVME SSD drive.
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So testing it out, I did a few kind of standard things that I do.
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So I tested it running audacity, it actually performed very well.
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One thing I did notice was when it came to exporting tracks,
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I was reminded that I was running a Pie with a wee bit slower.
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So general day-to-day things, I installed Libra Office, that performed very well,
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typing up the one thing I will say about Libra Office was for some unknown reason.
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When I installed it through the repos on I used a Raspberry Pi always.
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And the icons were absolutely tiny and that was on my 32 inch monitor.
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So I'd hate to think what it would be like on a much smaller monitor.
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But the icons were tiny, I had to increase the size for Libra Office.
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They were horribly small.
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This didn't keep in the same theme in with the actual Raspberry Pi always.
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The icons were appropriately sized for that.
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So just a one word of note there.
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When it came to browsing, the browsing experience was better.
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There were some lag on the images.
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It was loading up, it kind of reminded me of stepping back maybe a bit two or three years on my own computer.
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However, just bearing my comparison is I currently,
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as my main desktop PC, have an i9 gaming rig.
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So it's maybe not fair to compare that.
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It was slightly slower but certainly nothing that would ruin the browsing experience.
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The one thing that did surprise me was when I installed Gimp and Inkscape,
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how well they run without any issues.
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Just for a simple basic thing, I was able to save an image and each the image of Web
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and then open it up in Gimp and remove the background completely.
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Placed it into Inkscape, I added a shadow stucker.
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I actually created a, I got the Pi 5 itself.
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Remove the background completely.
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I added a shadow, put it on a worktop.
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And I have to admit, it had absolutely no lag or anything whatsoever.
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In fact, I was actually really impressed.
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It actually handled as well as my PC at work,
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which runs the tenth edition of a certain MS operating system.
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So that actually did shock me.
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I wouldn't expect this to be a gaming PC,
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but I thought let's try.
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I actually did try to get Stardew Valley running on this,
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not because it's going to stretch it in any way,
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it uses my favorite game.
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I installed Box86, but I was unsuccessful at actually getting it to run,
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so actually I didn't even get it properly installed.
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I kept on throwing up better messages.
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However, I wasn't the only one.
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A lot of people seemed to get stuck on this issues I was looking at.
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I'm good to page.
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I was looking at various forums.
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So I just kind of gave up after a couple of days trying.
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But I did throw into it right.
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What can I do?
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That's not just a 2D game.
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So then I thought back to, okay,
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I haven't played this in years.
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Extreme Tux Racer.
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Still there.
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I decided let's give this a try.
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And to be honest, I expected this to be quite choppy.
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And glitchy to be honest,
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given at the end of the days a pie.
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However, I was really impressed.
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Everything ran nicely.
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It didn't splutter.
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It didn't go slow.
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It rendered very well.
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And I was able to complete every race that I tried.
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It really was a nice surprise for me to get that.
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What's the use case here?
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Well, certainly,
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this could be used as a desktop PC.
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Or maybe as an alternative to desktop PC, should I say,
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for kind of casual everyday users.
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However, you know, if you're running your PC for work,
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video editing, if you want to play AAA titles and gaming,
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et cetera, this certainly is not going to cut the mustard.
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It's one of the cases I've just actually thought of,
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is if you have got maybe elderly parents or grandparents
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that like to use computers,
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but you know,
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they're only just maybe running it for just browsing the web,
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doing maybe doing a few basic things,
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typing up a letter, something like that.
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And you're the one that maintains it.
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This could actually be ideal,
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because it's such a small thing, the pie,
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that you could literally take it away,
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you know, produce an update,
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or if anything happens,
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where you actually have to reinstall something
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then it's no major issue.
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So that is certainly something to think about.
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But the pie to be honest for the majority of people,
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it's projects, it's single use things.
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And you know, from the specs I read out earlier,
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then it's certainly going to have more than enough
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to do the vast majority of things.
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In fact, if we've been entirely honest,
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it might be overkill for actually a lot of things.
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The pie-5 can certainly do everything and more
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that the previous incarnations of the pie could do.
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But one thing to bear in mind is,
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it will also require more power.
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And in turn, that can increase the running cost.
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Now, nothing compared to a desktop PC.
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But it's actually a bit more than the pie-4,
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which I remember a lot of the pie enthusiasts
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accused that of being power-hungry.
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Now, if anybody really plugging this in,
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connecting it to the mains,
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you know, this is going to be negligible.
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However, it is something that may be worth considering.
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If you're going to use the pie for something
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like an outdoor project,
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so something like maybe a weather station,
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or if you're going to use it for camera-to-view nature and wildlife,
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you know, on a robot, for example,
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where a battery is going to be necessary,
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the extra performance is going to be a bit heavier on battery usage.
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So it is maybe something that is worth considering.
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Now, for significant performance,
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we're only going to have a very slight increase in price.
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So the 8-gig model, just purely the pie itself,
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is currently 76.80 on Pymaroney.
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But given the 8-gig pie-4 is currently retailing
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at 72.00 on Pymaroney,
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for an extra £4.80, you really are getting quite a considerable improvement.
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Now, before I actually kind of finish off and sign off here,
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I've got to do an honest review.
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I really cannot review something that's designed
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to almost be a low-end P desktop PC
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without comparing it to a mini PC.
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So maybe thinking about comparing it with the Intel N100
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or something similar, you know, if you're looking for a small PC,
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certainly the pie is a lot smaller, considerably smaller,
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and running it will use significantly less power.
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But it is worth considering that for a similar price,
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at the time of recording, there's a mini PC on Amazon
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with a power by the Intel N100 for 169 pound and 15 pence.
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The device is 3.4 gigahertz, 4 cores and 4 threads.
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So 16 gigabyte RAM, so that's going to double the pie's one.
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And again, this comes with M.2 PCIe 500 gigabyte SSD,
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which is the same as what I had.
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It does have Wi-Fi 6, which is an improvement,
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because the pie does come with a Wi-Fi 5.
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And one last thing to consider,
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especially if you want to use it as a desktop,
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is that that is actually an XCD6 device,
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where you may think you're so hot.
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Well, that does mean you're going to have
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an awful lot more applications
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that run natively on that,
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compared to the ARM-based architecture that the pie uses.
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Now, I'm not saying that there's a clear winner either way,
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but you really have to do consider,
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is it worth thinking about that?
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For when we're talking about, you know,
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kind of roughly the same price,
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but I've kind of 10 to 15 pound difference.
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Certainly as far as the scores,
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there's a significant improvement over the pie versions.
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As I said earlier,
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you need to ask yourself,
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is it worth investing in this?
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If you already have current projects using pie forge
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and they're handling them fine,
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you know, is it worth taking them off
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and replacing them with pie fives at this stage
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I personally would probably say no?
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If you're looking at getting a new pie,
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then yes, I'd absolutely highly recommend this,
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especially given you're getting a significant improvement
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for a tiny price increase.
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Now, you may think, maybe asking,
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is there anywhere this really stands out
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and there's one place I'm going to say?
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The pie five certainly has,
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from my limited experience with it so far,
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shows significant increase in performance
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when you're running retro gaming.
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Anything up to,
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to be honest, to kind of,
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GameCube ROMs, et cetera,
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ending up to them, there's no difference.
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What I've really noticed was running PlayStation games,
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running PS1, PS2 games.
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It definitely is a significant improvement
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over the pie forward for that.
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So definitely something to think about
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if you are actually wanting to run it
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as a retro gaming emulator.
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If you don't want to go anything beyond the SNES
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or the Mega Drive,
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then no, this is probably not worth it, in my opinion.
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But yeah, if you're looking at more and more
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sort of up-to-date systems,
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looking at building up a retro gaming emulator
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with something a bit more advanced
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than just the 16-bit systems,
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then yeah, definitely have a look at this.
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So overall, that's my review of the pie five.
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Again, limited, very limited in what I have.
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I've only been playing about with this for a couple of months,
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and not like I said, every single day.
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I did try running it as my daily driver
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for just over a week,
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and I have to confess,
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this would be something outside a gaming
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that I could probably live with quite easily,
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and it's certainly something to think about.
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If you want to take a computer away with your holiday,
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take your HDMI cable,
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who could up to a screen.
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So there, that is my two-peneth on the pie five.
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So if you have any comments, please put them below.
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I'll put the links to the various items that I bought
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in the show notes,
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and yeah, that's pretty much me.
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So until next time,
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it's goodbye from me.
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You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio
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at HackerPublicRadio.org.
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Today's show was contributed
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by a HBR listener like yourself.
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If you ever thought of recording podcasts,
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then click on our contribute link
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to find out how easy it really is.
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Hosting for HBR has been kindly provided by
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an honesthost.com,
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the internet archive, and our sings.net.
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On the Sadois status,
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today's show is released under Creative Commons,
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Attribution 4.0 International License.
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