512MB Raspberry Pi Project Board Model B for $35

Yeah, I want one of these things to play around with, but $45-50 seems a bit steep for a bare board. Keep posting those deals, though...eventually someone will sell with free shipping and break the current price lock.

Yeeeah, like others said, I can get one from Amazon with 2-day Prime shipping for the same price as this place + their shipping cost (slower shipping I bet, too)

Quote from mrwhistles : I have mine at my desk at work hooked up to a CRT tv that I use to watch youtube. Pretty cool and capable piece of hardware for the price.

How? I thought Adobe was never going to release Flash for this ARM.

Why not just get a HDMI A10 stick for $35. At least that can be use for Netflix/PPTV/XMBC.

Quote from max1001 : Why not just get a HDMI A10 stick for $35. At least that can be use for Netflix/PPTV/XMBC.

Because the Rasp has hardware decoding out of the box.

Xbmc runs great on the Rasp, and has played every video I have thrown at it...It also streams with no issue at all...

For the price, nothing can compare.

Quote from spikey911 : Because the Rasp has hardware decoding out of the box. Xbmc runs great on the Rasp, and has played every video I have thrown at it...It also streams with no issue at all... For the price, nothing can compare.

I know its hard to compare but after an SD card, case, shipping, it really starts to add up. I could probably get a roku for cheaper.

Quote from jshbckr : Yeeeah, like others said, I can get one from Amazon with 2-day Prime shipping for the same price as this place + their shipping cost (slower shipping I bet, too)

I bought from MCM.

Took 1 day to process and received in 1 day.

The board from this seller was made in the UK and not in China which I do appreciate.

The shipping charge was $10.49 and it cost them $7.89 to ship so not much profit there, but it is high.

Runs Raspbmc like a champ.

Quote from 54lzy : I know its hard to compare but after an SD card, case, shipping, it really starts to add up. I could probably get a roku for cheaper.

The Roku is a nice device, but you can do so much more with XBMC on this device.

With the Roku, can you stream videos from websites online?

Quote from 54lzy : I know its hard to compare but after an SD card, case, shipping, it really starts to add up. I could probably get a roku for cheaper.

It gets a lot of responses like that, but I don't think it was ever meant to compete in price or performance with dedicated embedded setups. Where it excels is in versatility and configurability. In this price range I can see having three or four of these on the shelf just for projects that come up, especially projects where I stand to learn something interesting, which is not a way I've thought about computers before... and a lot of us techno-geeks have all or most of the hardware necessary to make them work lying around anyway, it's just common consumer electronics junk. Mix and match, reconfigure on the fly, if it can be solved with a Linux box that takes very little power to run 24/7 and has easily programmable general purpose I/O (or more than one), it is solved... and the skills you develop apply to the next project, and the one after that. It's not like you're investing the learning curve in a bunch of proprietary locked-down stuff.

Roku may indeed do some things better or for cheaper, but this is WAY more fun. You just want to be a passive consumer your whole life?

Quote from spikey911 : The shipping charge was $10.49 and it cost them $7.89 to ship so not much profit there, but it is high.

MCM is part of Premier Farnell, which has a global contract with UPS (think Boeing, Ingram, etc).
I seriously doubt their actual cost is more than $4-5 to ship a Rasp anywhere in the US.

pretty sure these are old tech by now. they got a name for being one of the first of the "pc on a stick" trend.....but the ras pi has been surpassed, even by chinese hobbyists looking for a few extra bucks....

can get better android sticks for a little more if you look around

XBMC isn't the only game in town... RasPlex [rasplex.com] is now out too.

Recent Lifehacker article about RasPlex
http://lifehacker.com/5991040/ras...theater-pc

Quote from Kryspie : pretty sure these are old tech by now. they got a name for being one of the first of the "pc on a stick" trend.....but the ras pi has been surpassed, even by chinese hobbyists looking for a few extra bucks.... can get better android sticks for a little more if you look around

Exactly what sticks would you be referring to ? All the sticks Iv'e seen,none of them run xbmc smoothly. Most say Android devices just aren't quite there yet..If I'm wrong plz let me know..

As far as the debate of which is better..that's tough. I use both thru my 3 rokus and htpc. Plex is nice,especially when streaming to my phone or such,but XBMC to me wins in terms of features and interface. It is just so much more feature rich and polished eye candy factor,to me anyway...But both are nice and rock solid.