Best budget Raspberry Pi starter kit for a noobie with 0 knowledge?

[Boomer112]

Hi! So... i recently got quite interested in buying a Raspberry Pi (for just regular at-home use, like an alternative to a laptop and possibly some extremely light gaming). I literally have 0 knowledge about anything Rasperry Pi related, so i'm asking here for the best cheapest starter kit.

I don't really have a budget, but maybe like $60+ or $80+ but not over $100. I know i'd probably have to spend atleast $100 to actually get a decent working kit but... i'm getting a Raspberry Pi just for fun, so i don't really feel like spending over $100 or even $100 at all to be honest.

[GOTSpectrum]

there is a massive shortage of R Pis atm and you will struggle to get one for anything close to a decent price. I would start by having a look at this channel. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/@ExplainingComputers

 

he talks a lot about single board computers such as the pi 

[Eigenvektor]

6 minutes ago, Boomer112 said:

Raspberry Pi (for just regular at-home use, like an alternative to a laptop and possibly some extremely light gaming).

Be aware that a RasPi uses an ARM based CPU, so don't expect anything other than native open source Linux games to run on it.

 

Not sure what the market is like in your area, but around here Pis currently seem to cost x4 from what they should.

 

Maybe consider some small form factor x86 based machine instead.

[Bombastinator]

Apparently the problem is pi production is slow, therefore ther are scalpers.  Since this is a hobby thing I suggest going to an authorized reseller that has them at a reasonable price but is out of stock and then get on their wait list.  It will probably take a few months but you’ll get it at a decent price.  I didn’t know about this one when I started and wound up paying scalper prices. My “starter” is a bliKVMHAT which isn’t a “learning” kit but is actually useful.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Bombastinator

[Gokul_P]

26 minutes ago, Boomer112 said:

Hi! So... i recently got quite interested in buying a Raspberry Pi (for just regular at-home use, like an alternative to a laptop and possibly some extremely light gaming). I literally have 0 knowledge about anything Rasperry Pi related, so i'm asking here for the best cheapest starter kit.

I don't really have a budget, but maybe like $60+ or $80+ but not over $100. I know i'd probably have to spend atleast $100 to actually get a decent working kit but... i'm getting a Raspberry Pi just for fun, so i don't really feel like spending over $100 or even $100 at all to be honest.

Pi is a arm based Machine and it is very underperforming for the basic tasks also so not a alternative to a laptop you can run some emulators for gaming that pretty much it and cloud stream might work i really dont tried it. it is mostly a fun project thing rather than a day to day computer replacement. You can do so many awesome things with pi but it wont be a replacement for a laptop. And pi is now overpriced on online retailers so check the stores. if you are just gonna put some emulator or just using as a mini Pc You only need a micro Hdmi to fullsize  Hdmi Adapter or a cable, a monitor, A 32Gb Sd card and a usb c charger i think pi comes with one im not that sure.  if for daily use get a mini Pc or dell OptiPlex from 5 or so years and i think it blow raspberry pi into wild when it comes to D2D use 

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Gokul_P said:

Pi is a arm based Machine and it is very underperforming for the basic tasks also so not a alternative to a laptop you can run some emulators for gaming that pretty much it and cloud stream might work i really dont tried it. it is mostly a fun project thing rather than a day to day computer replacement. You can do so many awesome things with pi but it wont be a replacement for a laptop. And pi is now overpriced on online retailers so check the stores. if you are just gonna put some emulator or just using as a mini Pc You only need a micro Hdmi to fullsize  Hdmi Adapter or a cable, a monitor, A 32Gb Sd card and a usb c charger i think pi comes with one im not that sure.  

I’d call it equivelent to a higher end desktop of 10 years ago.  It sort of depends on what you need to do.  If you’re comfortable with command line for example it’s way more than is needed.  Comparing it to even a current low end laptop though it fairs poorly.   They cost $50 for a reason.

[Gokul_P]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

I’d call it equivelent to a higher end desktop of 10 years ago.  It sort of depends on what you need to do.  If you’re comfortable with command line for example it’s way more than is needed.  Comparing it to even a current low end laptop though it fairs poorly.   They cost $50 for a reason.

With current Market that 50$ isnt the case now. rather than spending 150$  just for a pi i think going for a old  OptiPlex (or basically any prebuild from anyone with a SSD upgrade). the only thing going for pi now is the energy efficiency for Day to day use.  

[Boomer112]

48 minutes ago, Gokul_P said:

Pi is a arm based Machine and it is very underperforming for the basic tasks also so not a alternative to a laptop you can run some emulators for gaming that pretty much it and cloud stream might work i really dont tried it. it is mostly a fun project thing rather than a day to day computer replacement. You can do so many awesome things with pi but it wont be a replacement for a laptop. And pi is now overpriced on online retailers so check the stores. if you are just gonna put some emulator or just using as a mini Pc You only need a micro Hdmi to fullsize  Hdmi Adapter or a cable, a monitor, A 32Gb Sd card and a usb c charger i think pi comes with one im not that sure.  if for daily use get a mini Pc or dell OptiPlex from 5 or so years and i think it blow raspberry pi into wild when it comes to D2D use 

Ohh, alright! Yeah, well i'm not really replacing it with anything and i probably won't use it on a daily basis. I just want a Pi because i want something more to ''play'' around with.

[Gokul_P]

5 minutes ago, Boomer112 said:

Ohh, alright! Yeah, well i'm not really replacing it with anything and i probably won't use it on a daily basis. I just want a Pi because i want something more to ''play'' around with.

That is the perfect use for pi. Do you like programming and stuff. There is tons of kits that for differant stuff thats why iam asking 

[Boomer112]

1 hour ago, Eigenvektor said:

Be aware that a RasPi uses an ARM based CPU, so don't expect anything other than native open source Linux games to run on it.

 

Not sure what the market is like in your area, but around here Pis currently seem to cost x4 from what they should.

 

Maybe consider some small form factor x86 based machine instead.

Yeah, uhm... everything is pretty much sold out in my area/country. And sadly, not many physical stores have Raspberry Pi's in my country. It's mostly online, which are also out of stock. lol I guess i'll look for something similar then or whatever.

[Boomer112]

6 minutes ago, Gokul_P said:

That is the perfect use for pi. Do you like programming and stuff. There is tons of kits that for differant stuff thats why iam asking 

Unfortunately, i have zero knowledge in programming so... that's not my main reason of getting a Pi. With ''play'' around i pretty much mean watching Youtube, etc and extremely basic stuff if it can even handle that. lol

[manikyath]

1 hour ago, Eigenvektor said:

anything other than native open source Linux games to run on it.

and most that do run, generally run poorly.

--

on topic:

if you're not getting into raspberry pi specificly FOR the platform, you have nothing to lose with raspberry.

 

besides the obvious option of buying a second hand dell optiplex / hp prodesk, you can also buy something like an asrock mini-ITX embedded cpu board. for the full kit (i.e. including a case and an ATX power supply, bought new.) you're only looking at around 200 bucks, for a system that'll outperform the pi in just about every way, by leaps and bounds. oh, and these ITX boards actually arent all that much more power hungry than a raspberry pi.

[Gokul_P]

Just now, Boomer112 said:

Unfortunately, i have zero knowledge in programming so... that's not my main reason of getting a Pi. With ''play'' around i pretty much mean watching Youtube, etc and extremely basic stuff if it can even handle that. lol

For basic stuff  i think small pc will do the job watching youtube and stuff and raspi is pretty much overprized in all online retailers. If you can find one in stock at the msrp (50$) that is the only reason to buy it now. Watching yt and playing small games is well served by a dell optiplux like old office pcs  and they are cheap on everywhere you  want to add a ssd  if it didnt have one already and you have a pretty good machine for any basic tasks.

[Boomer112]

13 minutes ago, Gokul_P said:

For basic stuff  i think small pc will do the job watching youtube and stuff and raspi is pretty much overprized in all online retailers. If you can find one in stock at the msrp (50$) that is the only reason to buy it now. Watching yt and playing small games is well served by a dell optiplux like old office pcs  and they are cheap on everywhere you  want to add a ssd  if it didnt have one already and you have a pretty good machine for any basic tasks.

Yeah, alright. I get it! I'll look for Optiplux's and other similar PC's then instead.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Gokul_P said:

With current Market that 50$ isnt the case now. rather than spending 150$  just for a pi i think going for a old  OptiPlex (or basically any prebuild from anyone with a SSD upgrade). the only thing going for pi now is the energy efficiency for Day to day use.  

What do they cost now then?  $150 is a scalper price for a pi cpm4.  If you want one off Amazon or something that is what they cost, but afaik the original sellers are bound to sell them at msrp (which is where the scalpers are getting them) so you sign up and wait.  If you got to pay $150 though. They’re an awful deal.  It’s a lot like the gpu market a year ago.  

[manikyath]

11 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

What do they cost now then?  $150 is a scalper price for a pi cpm4.  If you want one off Amazon or something that is what they cost, but afaik the original sellers are bound to sell them at msrp (which is where the scalpers are getting them) so you sign up and wait.  If you got to pay $150 though. They’re an awful deal.  It’s a lot like the gpu market a year ago.  

i've been eyeing a CM4 for a while, but i gave up because every place that doesnt charge STUPID rates is out of stock on just about every model.

 

also, even if you can find something in stock on MSRP stores, it's the high end models.. so at the very best you're buying a $80 pi, not a $50 pi.

 

[Bombastinator]

57 minutes ago, Gokul_P said:

For basic stuff  i think small pc will do the job watching youtube and stuff and raspi is pretty much overprized in all online retailers. If you can find one in stock at the msrp (50$) that is the only reason to buy it now. Watching yt and playing small games is well served by a dell optiplux like old office pcs  and they are cheap on everywhere you  want to add a ssd  if it didnt have one already and you have a pretty good machine for any basic tasks.

There is a discord app that will tell you when stuff is in stock.  It’s mostly in Europe.  Germany most commonly for whatever reason. They sell out in minutes though.

[Bombastinator]

42 minutes ago, Boomer112 said:

Yeah, alright. I get it! I'll look for Optiplux's and other similar PC's then instead.

You can find old office desktops that aren’t convertible for gaming in the $50 range.  The ones that are are in th $300 range, but the ones that can’t are consideded trash grade.  A 7th gen 2/4 intel machine or something.  Decent power usage a lot more I/o and just easier to deal with in general.  Another option is pi actually got clones.  Ther is orange pi and banana pi and a bunch of others, and they DON’T have the scalping problem.  A third option is beaglebone which is a single board that runs on BSD instead of Linux.  They’re even cheaper, and I know for a fact that you can get mythTV to run on one with some massaging because my upstairs tenant did it.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

i've been eyeing a CM4 for a while, but i gave up because every place that doesnt charge STUPID rates is out of stock on just about every model.

 

also, even if you can find something in stock on MSRP stores, it's the high end models.. so at the very best you're buying a $80 pi, not a $50 pi.

 

And while they will come back in stil they will only stay that way for a couple of minutes.  Scalpers have to get their inventory somehow. There’s a discord bit that will check prices an alert you when something comes in stock, or if you’re not in a hurry get one from one of the out-of-stock places that is also an authorized retailer (Amazon isn’t) and wait till that store gets a shipment.  Not very immediate, but actually doable. If you’re looking at a cm4 for a pikvm the blikvm discord support site is where I got the discord bot.

[Boomer112]

On 1/13/2023 at 7:03 PM, Bombastinator said:

You can find old office desktops that aren’t convertible for gaming in the $50 range.  The ones that are are in th $300 range, but the ones that can’t are consideded trash grade.  A 7th gen 2/4 intel machine or something.  Decent power usage a lot more I/o and just easier to deal with in general.  Another option is pi actually got clones.  Ther is orange pi and banana pi and a bunch of others, and they DON’T have the scalping problem.  A third option is beaglebone which is a single board that runs on BSD instead of Linux.  They’re even cheaper, and I know for a fact that you can get mythTV to run on one with some massaging because my upstairs tenant did it.

Yeah, i've actually found some cheap Optiplux's online that are in my price range but i haven't found one that i specifically want yet. I have looked at Pi clones myself already, one of them actually being Beaglebone. The other i looked at is the Libre Computer Le Potato, but idk about that one. Seems like it's not really supported anymore.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, Boomer112 said:

Yeah, i've actually found some cheap Optiplux's online that are in my price range but i haven't found one that i specifically want yet. I have looked at Pi clones myself already, one of them actually being Beaglebone. The other i looked at is the Libre Computer Le Potato, but idk about that one. Seems like it's not really supported anymore.

Maybe check Craigslist or a going-out of business auction or something. What you’re unlikely to find is multiple or over 1gb ethernet, or anything other than pcie, usb3.0, wireless N, or sata3.  If they were good for anything other than being put to use as a router or something they would be worth more money. Whatever they are going to be used for the will probably need a pcie card of some sort costing about $20.  An rj45, wifi, something.  The advantage they have is flexibility.  The disadvantage is size.

Edited January 15, 2023 by Bombastinator

[Takumidesh]

A major benefit of the pi is the GPIO, and the legacy.

 

People get PIs because sutff is made for PIs, like cases, accessories, kits, software, etc.

 

If you want to have a small cheap computer, a cheap laptop is going to cost the same, but have a screen, keyboard, mouse etc. you will have to buy or use all of that for a pi (increasing the price)

 

There are lots of single board PCs that are cheaper than the pi and have different functionality. If you don't need IO, or pre-built hardware (hats that connect directly to the pi for things like gps for example) you don't need a pi in particular.