At the time I was thinking about RetroShield, I read other people trying RPI as their main computer. The reviews were mixed, so I asked myself, why not? I used RPI for about 2 months and I believe it has a lot of potential for daily use with some gotchas.
TL;DR version
- Raspberry pi is dead slow compared to your Intel laptop, but if you make the following upgrades, it is very useful.
- Use mSATA drive instead of SDCard.
- Use Raspberry PI 3B+ with good heatsink.
- Add an RTC board so clock works fine without Internet.
- Don’t expect to multitask apps due to limited, non-upgradable RAM.
I used it to develop RetroShield schematics and PCB and some of the documentation. I would do it again without hesitation. RPI helped me stay focused because I could work on only one task at a time :)
Links for more information:
I got the Pi-Top laptop, so I can work away from home. It is slightly expensive but the keyboard layout and tactile feedback is a pleasure (it feels good to type as much as my Mac 2009; not the recent mac’s which are terrible).
Here is how I installed the mSATA inside the pi-top. I have an RTC board waiting to be installed.
