Raspberry Pi sales surge on the back of COVID-19 crisis

[Redaktion]

There have been a lot of unexpected side effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and we can add another to the list. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has revealed that March saw its second highest number of sales since it launched in 2012.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Raspberry-Pi-sales-surge-on-the-back-of-COVID-19-crisis.461948.0.html

[t4n0n]

Raspberry Pi founder and current CEO Eben Upton says that he believes the sales spike is because people are looking for an inexpensive way to work from home or continue with their studies in response to lockdown orders.

That does seem quite amusingly naïve to me, for Upton.

I imagine the number of people who purchase the Pi for the purposes of doing work - outside of those working on projects which specifically integrate the need for a SBC, as opposed to a computer in general - is vanishingly small.

The Pi isn't suited to general, desktop tasks, such as word processing, browsing or software development - even the latest 4GB model.

I imagine (and would hope) the real reason for the surge in sales is instead driven by bored men and women being stuck inside for weeks on end, deciding that they want to learn something new, or try a project of some kind, for which the Pi truly is an incredible tool; especially with the amazing amount of learning resources out there, like on Youtube, for example.

[Thunder Maw]

I recently installed a Pi-hole in my network. Everybody is at home all the time. Bandwidth is shared and I had issues with my internet connection. Got me a better contract and dicided I wanted to reduce bandwidth by over a fourth by blocking ads. They were driving me increasingly mad anyways and I've never been online as much ever before. I recommend this idea to several people.

Additionally, we're all stuck at home and have the time to try something new or are craving for some entertainment. Pis are perfect for that. Just install Retro Pie or Kodi for some retro gaming or home theatre for example.

The least thing I would use the Pi for is working. Like for real. It doesn't do that well. I can get a better second hand laptop for the price of a Pi easily and it will outperform the Pi by a lot.

[Martin Gatehouse]

T4non, I disagree, I have been involved in many setups using Raspi as a thin client to a work pc.  Tools like wmware are really good.

I personally use a 4gb Raspi dual 1080 screens, with one screen using Chromium for web apps (Gmail, o365, etc) and Remmina to my win10 laptop for other installed apps, therefore benefitting from screen real estate over just the laptop on my desk.