I’m all for second hand, and have gone in this direction myself for use cases, but you do need some bare minimum level of technical competency, or someone to guide you.
I’ve purchased several SFFs on eBay, and had some experiences with broken hardware.
If you’re purchasing this as learning tool, particular for kids/teenagers, that’s not going to be a great experience.
That’s really the market where something like the Pi 400/500 shines. It’s new, it’s going to work, and the documentation/tutorials are super accessible.
I'm not really referring to broken / questionable hardware here. I'm talking about ex office stock thats been flashed with a fresh copy of Windows and is ready to go out of the box, the same way any new PC would. That's far more accessible than a Pi.
I'd argue you need a lot more technical competency to get a pi running than a fresh out of the box mini pc.
I’ve purchased several SFFs on eBay, and had some experiences with broken hardware.
If you’re purchasing this as learning tool, particular for kids/teenagers, that’s not going to be a great experience.
That’s really the market where something like the Pi 400/500 shines. It’s new, it’s going to work, and the documentation/tutorials are super accessible.