exMach user moving to the other side, need help transforming...

The BBB is open source, has more GPIOs but the thing that lets is down (in consumer's eyes) is the graphics aren't quite as fast and only 512MB ram, but is does have 4GB of on board flash and the ethernet port is not tied to the USB bus oh and the 2 on chip 200MHz controllers, and yes it is a little more expensive (a lot now I think). Probably more industrial as well as you can get industrial temperature rated BBBs. It appears to be designed to do real work.

If I remember my BBB came preinstalled with an OS and all I had to do was plug it into my Laptop\PC with out need for a PSU, keyboard\mouse or monitor.

The RPi had a big push into the UK education system as well.

Hi Andy,

Yes, the one I used was the IDE version:

m.ebay.co.uk/itm/Industrial-Disk-On-Modu...655318181?nav=SEARCH

In theory it makes perfect sense and as you said it is a nice way of having a backup but after my experience I'm not so sure I'll use the IDE version anytime soon. Rather save the disk image on some other media.