A SOC that can’t handle more than 8GB of RAM?

Indeed, that’s the same upper limit Raspberry Pi had until a few weeks ago and not really that unheard of for SBC chips like this :)

Sorry but that seems worthless to me when there are already raspberries, smartphones, other SOCs with 8GB.

None of those are RISC-V nor laptops, so I don’t really see how the two compare? That’s a bit like saying there’s no use for family cars as we have planes now.

As for “recycled SBC”, well that’s expensive then.

Well, it does offer a lot more than just that. If you want an SBC, then great, get the SBC for cheaper. If you want a RISC-V laptop, well, good luck making one on your own with a cheap SBC for less. It’s certainly doable! Just not really something every developer who would like to advance RISC-V wants to do.

I just don’t see the value in this.

Great, then the product is exactly as advertised and serving the market it’s made for. I quote the blog post here:

This is very much a developer-focused board to help accelerate maturing the software ecosystem around RISC-V, so we recommend waiting for future RISC-V products if you’re looking for a consumer-ready experience.