Probably time to admit I'm addicted to these awesome little gadget boards and devices.
And I just discovered this one: the HummingBoard.
Get ready to fall in love with new HummingBoard - a small and powerful, low-cost ARM computer that ignites the imagination. Whatever your dream, the HummingBoard will help make it happen - the possibilities for creating the next great IoT innovation are truly limitless. The HummingBoard allows you to run many open source operating systems - such as Ubuntu, Debian and Arch - as well as Android and XBMC. With its core technology based on SolidRun's state-of-the-art Micro System on a Module (MicroSOM), it has ready-to-use OS images, and its open hardware comes with full schematics and layout. Best of all, as a Linux single board computer, the HummingBoard is backed by the global digital maker community, which means you can alter the product in any way you like and get full kernel upstreaming support and all the assistance you need.
The big, obvious advantage is that the USB hub is powered, which would allow you to connect it to an external hard drive full of your data, something that's kind of a hassle with the Raspberry Pi (well, not a
huge hassle, but an extra step).
People can't cost-justify upgrading CPU or RAM in $2,000 PCs after 3-5 years -- how the heck is it cost justified to replace a CPU or RAM module on a 2 year old $45 board? The whole idea is rather stupid. Devices this size practically beg to be replaced wholesale when they need to be upgraded. (And apparently the maker agrees with me, since rather than offering the tiny replacement CPU/Eth/RAM modules they're really just selling 3 different models of board.)
Agreed that the quoted sales blurb was remarkably useless.