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Missed out on Raspberry Pi? Here're five alternatives

One is $35 the other 5 are $100+ more. One is small, cheap, and worth a play with little lost if it's not for you. I can throw away $35 a lot easier than $150. I can buy a proper system board for that.

The key thing was to supply a device for the emerging masses; a device that was practical and also had a learning function. I'm sorry but none of the other 5 come close to those aims in my opinion. No doubt great products... but surely a different market.

As pjmckay correctly noted above...

I would rather pay $35 or so than 3 digits for nothing. You can buy a used PC for that much!
Patience... The Raspeberry PI will create an entire new audience, just like the Apple II did.

I'd be very interested in your other lists of alternatives to "Things that Cost $35". :^)

mmm not fair to compare them boards with the pi mines on order and i don't mind the wait its for my 11 yr old Daughter to learn programming etc what it was intended for by the developers.

PandaBoard has "3.5-inch audio in and out"?!?!?! Might want to change that to 3.5mm and hire a proof reader.

Instant messaging has ruined me for life.... I read right past that error with an image of a stereo mini jack in my head. It's getting so that I automatically translate absolutely everything I read into what I imagine the author intended to write. (wait...that's not ~cough/gag/choke~ an assumption...is it?!?)

I was wowed with the Raspberry Pi and Scratch, just the job to get into playing with computers. Couldn't get one out here in Dubai just yet, so dug out that 10 year old Celeron box, put ubuntu 32 bit and Scratch on it.

My son "wrote" his first programme, he is just over 5, magic!

When I get the chance I'll get him a Pi, until then zero cost alternative (even the most pedantic accountant would have written off the computer by now)

All of these alternatives cost at least $100 more than the $35 RaspberryPi, taking them out of the list of candidates for ubiquitous computing that the Pi targets. All of these are interesting devices but they target different use cases.

In your defense, you did NOT say "reasonable" alternatives. However, when compiling a list of "alternatives", I think it would be most helpful to the reader if the list matched, as closely as possible, the same function and price point as the original item. The Bentley is an alternative to the Chevy Cavalier. It is, however, an alternative that I am not even remotely interested in.

It's interesting to see this variety of compact devices and nice to know they're available. The cotton candy looks like fun. Keep it in your pocket and hook up to any monitor and keyboard/mouse you happen to find! I didn't know about Raspberry Pi either, so that's also interesting.

There is nothing that compares to it for price and feature.
The Model B is what I am looking at to test a turnkey VPN solution.

That's the usual "decision table" in these matters, and I suppose a lot of folks think the RPi hits a nice balance point. These "alternatives" seem to miss out on the "Cheap" criterion, but that is more typical. Actually, I like "pre-owned" to get close to that balance point, and have found many good deals on eBay, generally in the notebook PC category (or parts for them). However, a Dell Streak 5 for a $100 was a more recent exception - the seller botched reconnecting the cables for replacing the screen that seems especially vulnerable on these devices, and I worked through that with some good guides/pix Googled up to order. I suppose I was trading off the "fast" criterion. YMMV

Only reason I am interested in Raspberry Pi is on reducing my power consumption when downloading torrents 24/7. That part is missing from all the provided specs !

Try to buy a CuBox? You'll get the message "our first batch has sold out. We are accepting preorders for the next batch." Does this sound familiar?

Pi is sold at $35/=. I am pretty sure some Chinese bootleg product will soon be available for even less than that.

Via has announced the APC 8750 as a $49 alternative to Raspberry Pi coming soon. It has an info page at http://apc.io

Specs:
Software: Android 2.3 (PC System)
Chip: VIA 800MHz Processor
Memory: DDR3 512MB Memory
Storage: 2GB NAND Flash
Graphics: Built-in 2D/3D Graphic
Resolution: up to 720p
Input and Output: HDMI, VGA, USB 2.0 (x4), Audio out / Mic in, microSD Slot
Network: 10/100 Ethernet

For $74 (versus $199 for the Cotton Candy), the 7-ounce device gives you a 1.5-GHz Allwinner A10 CPU, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage and, like the Cotton Candy, Android 4.0. FXI's version, on the other hand, packs a dual-core 1.2-GHz Samsung Exynos processor, and while the MK802 offers an HDMI port, the Cotton Candy includes an HDMI connector.