I think an overlooked category here is small, cheap Linux-based routers running something like OpenWRT. A great example is TP-Link's TL-WR703N which is as little as $24USD.
It has very little RAM and memory, but OpenWRT is an excellent, stable and simple Linux distribution for making internet connected devices and interfacing with other hardware as well through a USB port. It also allows for easy scripting with Lua and beyond that, Lua can also be used with LuCI to create MVC web applications inside these tiny computers, with Wifi built in!
Completely agree, there is definitely a place for a lower-cost headless device with lower specs. Although no linux, the stm32f4discovery ($10, yes, ten) which is based on the cortex-m4 is also very interesting to an embedded hacker.
Another area overlooked is the chinese tablets. There are many from $60 up (eg stuff based on the arm9 via8650) and a little over $100 based on the allwinner A10, which will both run linux happily.
When you use the stm32fdiscovery , you can also write code in lua which is a pretty nice scripting language with easy c integration, using the Arduino API, and use a remote REPL from the pc to try out things.
And don't worry about soldering the serial leads to those pads. If you suck at soldering as much as I do, you'll just end up lifting the pads. Instead just take some wires and tape them to the board. Like this http://twitpic.com/9ftjme/full and yea they look weird in that image, because I had lifted the pads before I came up with this idea :/
If you need to do any serious hacking, you need to have a serial port in there. That usually requires a little soldering, and sometimes the pads on the PCBs can be a little tricky to solder to.
But after that you can access the bootloader and early kernel console and you can get a lot more stuff done if you need to. Like unbricking after a screwup.
It sounds weird, but Nexus 7 could legitimately appear on this list:
1. small
2. $200
3. Android ICS
Although it only runs Android ICS, so does the Gooseberry, and they included that. Ubuntu etc distributions will undoubtedly follow. Though... to be fair, it doesn't seem in Google's interest to support linux, whereas the Gooseberry folks may do so.
Similarly, if they include announced-but-unshipped (like raspberry pi), the same reasoning applies to Ouya: small, $100, Android ICS.
Finally, ARM for linux might not be the way to go... I've been making comparisons between ARM and x86, and it's seeming that one core of the iPhone 4S is about equivalent to the 600MHz Celeron M in the original eee PC (701). Current Atom cores are about x5 as powerful (at typical clockrates); and currentish intel desktop CPUs (e.g. i5 2500) are about x10 per core (i.e. twice ATOM). [I make per-core comparisons because in practice, for most tasks, parallelization is hard.) Yet, there's a sense that ARM compute performance is approximately on par. I think this comes from dedicated video hardware: when you hear it can do 1080p video, you think it's comparable to an x86 CPU that can do 1080p video. Please amend/extend - I have an ongoing interest in this.
EDIT I assumed incorrectly that Raspberry Pi hasn't shipped (from this line: I’ve set up Gooseberry for one chief reason, the time the Raspberry Pi is taking to get here!)
If it had an HDMI port, it'd be great for hacking on, since you could build all kinds of media center type applications with it. You could make your own Ouya. Without any video output, it doesn't have the utility of a (small) computer. Most of the devices on that list have an HDMI port.
My HTC Evo phone, now 2+ years old, has a mini HDMI port. I don't understand why companies are now shipping tablets without one.
Whoah, there's tons of new ones since last I looked, including numerous Android 4.0 models, with seemingly pretty good hardware.
I'm almost at the point where I think I could use one of those as my primary computer...plug in a mouse and keyboard, a big 1080P monitor, and do everything online. The ssh clients for Android, so far, are insufficient, however...but, I guess I could use OpenSSH in a terminal if I were using a full keyboard. That'd be an interesting experiment.
If only I didn't need to occasionally do compute-intensive audio and graphic work...
For the compute-intensive work, why not just shell into a beefy box? We spent $3k on a 96M RAM 12core(+ht means 24 apparent cores) box that we run OpenStack on, with a big-ass SSD and 2 TB of spinny platters, and it's PHENOMENAL to use remotely :)
What's unshipped - the A model? I got my first B model over a month ago and the second a few weeks ago. My guess is that Raspberry Pi has shipped more units than half of the devices in that article.
They're small form-factor but fully-capable systems. With a keyboard, monitor, and mouse, they're desktop replacements (you can take it with you), or can be used for small special-purpose tools.
Some critical info this page is missing is if the products are available for shipping to the US and how fast you can actually get them. I'd order a Raspberry Pi right now if I knew I'd have it in a week or so, but last I heard a lot of these units aren't easily available to those living in North America.
The average price of one of these devices is $145, calculated roughly. The cheapest devices also need peripherals that further increase the cost.
For roughly the same cost you can get a used laptop off ebay which can beat all of them in terms of system resources and most of them in terms of portability. It will however be a bit more expensive to run in terms of electricity.
Just putting my 2c in, after doing some research on the topic in hope of setting up a low-cost, low-maintenance server.
For roughly the same cost you can get a used laptop off ebay
I'm going to assume that we're talking about building an embedded device, controller, standalone appliance that interacts with the real world -- this is the intended market for most of the devices in the original article.
If you need to set up just one server or controller, a used laptop off eBay is a sensible way to go.
But if you're going to need a whole bunch of them, doing it that way will cause a ton of development grief. I've been there.
Unless you can be assured of a steady supply of exactly the same used laptop or whatever used device you're looking for, each variation that you buy will have some difference in firmware, BIOS, peripheral support, interface connectors, or whatever that will cause you to spend massive time adapting your software or hardware to it.
The money you save by buying cheap used systems will be nullified by the extra development you have to do for each variation.
I agree with what you say. I also noticed that if you're able to crystallize the reasons you want a linux computer for, then you can make a decision between the screen and screen-less ones. For instance, if you need a low powered media player directly connected to the HDMI port on your TV, then you'd obviously go for a screenless computer. In that particular category, the Allwinner MK802 surprisingly strikes me as a valid and very powerful competitor to the others. It needs an μSD card and one of those cheap bluetooth keyboards, along with a bluetooth adapter. It'd be pushing almost $100 bucks at that point.
In which case, you look hard again and figure out are you really trying to buy a media player, since if yes, you could get a Roku or something for much cheaper, or do you want an el-cheapo Android machine. If it's the latter, you'd better wait for the Ouya assuming it's going to be a success because at that price it's literally a steal. If you can't wait for the Ouya and still want one of these toys, I think the Allwinner even beats the Raspberry Pi, which I was so fanatical about initially, but after seeing so many other options I'm not sure if I want one anymore. Speaking of the RPi, I think the killer feature is that it has GPIO, so if you're trying to hack up some cool car or washing machine doohickeys then that might be up your alley.
Other than these two for screenless, I don't really see any value for money propositions. The screened variants fall even harder because they need to accommodate the cost of a screen and a keyboard, which results in an XScale processor. I honestly do not know what uses I could put these screened computers to.
It has very little RAM and memory, but OpenWRT is an excellent, stable and simple Linux distribution for making internet connected devices and interfacing with other hardware as well through a USB port. It also allows for easy scripting with Lua and beyond that, Lua can also be used with LuCI to create MVC web applications inside these tiny computers, with Wifi built in!