Interesting differences to the pi 3 io is the dual hdmi out.
I don't use the hdmi out very much on any of my pis so I find this interesting. Are people using these as workstations? Even with stripped down Debian they seem kind of slow even just browsing the web.
I'm not sure how common it is to use it as a workstation, but I've seen a lot of instances where a pi is used to power displays in business settings. Think internal things like dashboards, team/company messages, project calendars, etc. As well as external facing things such as menu boards, "Welcome" messages behind front desks, building directories, etc.
Whether a pi is the most appropriate device for that is another matter, but it seems to be a frequent enough use. And being able to power dual screens in these scenarios would be really helpful.
That said, between the marketing messaging and this[1], it seems like they really are pushing it as a potential low-powered workstation. So maybe that is something people do...
It took a few years for me to accept this, but the ongoing commitment to continuing to make available most Raspberry Pis is a pretty compelling argument for many business purposes over using a random old used PC or a more powerful SBC that may not longer be available in a year. The development of specialized OS distributions for some of these tasks only furthers the strength of the choice for going with what could be otherwise under powered hardware.
Looking at the 3 vs. 4, my eye went to the memory options—up to 4GB in the 4, versus 1GB in the 3—the USB 3 ports, and the fact that the 4 just says "Gigabit Ethernet", not "Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0". H.265 hardware decoding's pretty big too. Had made them a subpar choice for Kodi boxes and such for a while.
I... may be getting a few of these. I'd skipped the 3 on account of how the 2 turned out to be kind of a bust for me (have three, none in use...) but the faster IO and higher RAM options makes these one hell of a lot more useful. At 4GB you can kinda use the web, even, as long as you shy away from using more than one or two "web apps" (to include Electron) at a time.
[EDIT] sucked is harsh—it did what it said it would. It sucked if you actually wanted to use the Pi for serious IO of any kind. USB2.0 and Ethernet limited to USB2.0 speeds was no good at all for that.
There's the Nexdock / Nexdock 2 [0], if to be believed that will be shipping later this year, And some other projects listed here in a Purism thread [1]
Is the opposite of what? Wrong variable was asking for a laptop without compute part to which they could strap a Pi. That’s exactly what the Nexdock is at least.
I don't use the hdmi out very much on any of my pis so I find this interesting. Are people using these as workstations? Even with stripped down Debian they seem kind of slow even just browsing the web.