A True Mac Mini?

[Bazza1]

Looking at the specs for the HP, it won't be much better in terms of performance than the $300-$400 laptops offered on Black Friday. It wouldn't be useful for anything but the most basic tasks, and would likely throttle when doing even basic photo or video editing due to the design and limited thermal profile.

Yes, but Apple has traditionally found ways of packing things into slimmer packages than the Microsoft alternatives - see the original MacBook Airs. Even if the end result was essentially a laptop without a screen - a keyboard and a trackpad and USB-C ports all built-in - it would reduce the clutter.

Besides, aren't there rumours of a new MacBook running off an iPhone chip? It likely "wouldn't be useful for anything but the most basic tasks, and would likely throttle when doing even basic photo or video editing due to the design"?
So Apple is prepared to go down that road anyway.

 

[theluggage]

Retropie and similar software have been a focus for the Raspberry community going all the way back to the Raspberry Pi 3, so the 500+ brings nothing new to the table in that regard.

…apart from the whole “computer-in-a-keyboard” design throwback to the C64, Spectrum etc. which retropie etc. emulate…

You know, what this whole thread has been discussing…

Oh, plus and mechanical keys and RGB lights which maybe, just maybe might be particularly appealing to gamers…

 

[dmccloud]

…apart from the whole “computer-in-a-keyboard” design throwback to the C64, Spectrum etc. which retropie etc. emulate…

You know, what this whole thread has been discussing…

Oh, plus and mechanical keys and RGB lights which maybe, just maybe might be particularly appealing to gamers…

The emulation community is significantly smaller than the gaming community as a whole, so outside of that niche I don't see the 500+ pulling significant numbers of new users to the platform, especially as RAM prices are causing price spikes for Pi-based systems as well. You also have the new Commodore 64 which was just released in three variants - and all of which not only can use the C64 cartridges, but also other peripherals such as the cassette and floppy drives - that may be a bigger draw for the retrogaming community especially at relative price parity to the Pi 500+.