Eli the Bearded  wrote:
> Looks like it aims to be an Arduino competitor, so yeah, it's a
> computer, but not in the same "runs a desktop" sense as the others in
> the "Pi" lineage.

I don't really get the market positioning of this.  'Arduino' is these days
a programming interface, which runs on a variety of platforms from the
original 8-bit ATMega to the x86 Intel Quark and MIPS chips running Linux.
Users have been gradually moving from ATMega to ARM-based microcontrollers
like the STM32 on boards like the Blue Pill.

The Blue Pill doesn't have first party Arduino support, but the part is
widely available for cheap.  The RP2040 has slightly better specs, but
there's a whole range of STM32s to choose from if you're willing to pay
slightly more.  The STM32 is also widely available for production from the
usual distributors, while it remains to be seen whether you can buy the
RP2040 in production volumes from distributors, or whether you have to do
something 'special' (ie painful and awkward for a manufacturer).

Also the 'teaching' market for microcontrollers is a bit crowded, with all
the Arduinos, the BBC Micro:bit, as well as all the vendor platforms.

I can see the wish to own the ecosystem, as they do by being single-supplier
of the Pi SoC.  Maybe the software ecosystem will develop around this like
it has around Arduino, such that it's a no-brainer to use in a project
because of the high quality libraries and documentation available.  But
hardware-wise there's nothing particularly earthshattering here.

Theo

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