What Pi 5 is good for? It doesn't look like a portable because of high power consumption, nor it's a desktop class system because of its weak compute and high price. Pi 3 or 4 is still a better choice for almost anything including retro gaming and Linux education.
Pi 5 is still good if you want a modern, supported device to run Linux and any Linux-y things with either a small quiet fan or a passive heatsink/case. 3D Printer control, retro gaming with more grunt than Pi 4, small 'micro' server, etc.
It's in a middle ground between Pi 4 (which is cheaper and can idle a tiny bit little lower) and N100 (which is nominally more expensive—varies greatly by region, but is faster with better IO and more compatibility, though integrating with GPIO-related stuff is more annoying). The CM5 makes more sense for a lot of use-case specific purchases though, like I upgraded my Home Assistant Yellow from CM4 to CM5 and the performance difference is noticeable.
Other manufacturers make much faster (and more efficient, though similarly-priced, accounting for performance) SBCs now, but the support side (e.g. I download an image and it runs 2, 3, 5, or 10 years from now) is much worse, unless you're used to hacking on Linux kernels and following device-specific forums to resolve your issues.
N100 is not more expensive. It’s about the same price.
8GB pi5 is $80
Power brick around $15
Decent cooled case $20
Heat sink $8
SD $15-20
And this is all excluding NVMe hat with NVMe drive, ie you’re stuck with absolutely miserable storage I/O.
Or you can N100, 8GB (replaceable and expandable RAM, 256GB NVMe (also replaceable) for $140.
Pi5 does not make any sense in this day and age, unless you specifically need GPIO for your tinkering.
You can save $30 by going with the 2GB pi5 option but that seems the wrong direction to go.
N100 is more than 50% better performance with similar or lower cost and better support for off the shelf ram and ssd.
I think GPs point is if you need more horsepower you might as well get a used small form factor, and if you care about the GPIO and other interfaces you might as well get a PI 3 or 4. I get what you're saying it's a computer it could do all sorts of stuff.
I think the stronger argument/usecase is it's a drop-in replacement for the pi4. So if you're already dedicated to that form factor...
For anyone building a little homelab or whatever, especially in the US where triple the (low) power consumption from 3 to 9W+ isn't a big deal, a used SFF/mini PC is a better value proposition. Especially if you want to add storage, 2.5 Gbps networking, etc.
But for people integrating a computer into a larger project (robotics, automation, controls, etc.), or buying a little 'IoT' device to tinker with, buying used gear that is often much larger and usually requires a large external power brick might be a turn-off.
The high power draw didn't turn out to be that much of an obstacle in the end. A strong enough step down regulator with a USB-C decoy board and it runs fine off any decent battery.
I was sceptical at first too, but in the end the Pi 4 now feels like the Pi 3B+ felt against the Pi 4 (and that was just a 30% perf boost, this is 3x). I.e. just hopelessly slow in comparison, and the few I've got will be relegated only to the least demanding projects. The Pi 5 is now the standard Pi.
It idles down to 2.7w. Obviously it's not a desktop class system still, even when consuming its max rated power draw. But it idles low enough to be a fantastic little local server for simple applications.
Low power consumption and good Linux support makes it a good home server for your OCI containers. Would also be a capable surf machine to complement my power hungry desktop machine.
