Price of a used cellphone: generally nothing, as we all have extra as spares (and family members do the same). It is self contained.
If you need a brand new one, a ulefone with 6' screen costs as little as $57 all included: https://www.banggood.com/Ulefone-Note-7-6_1-inch-Triple-Rear...
It is ready to be rooted with mediatek exploit.
You get wifi + bluetooth + cellular, a screen (always useful for debug). Spend more if you want more ram, more processing power. $80 for a IP68/IP69K one, that's good.
I just can not see how spending more on an elaborate raspberry setup, to have an overall worse solution in the end can be a better idea.
A Pi Zero with WiFi costs about $10, case costs another $10, a name brand 32 GB SD card runs $10, and a 3.5" screen runs about $20 for a grand total of $50. A screen won't fit in the stock zero case but the zero does have a micro HDMI port.
I just can not see how spending more on an elaborate raspberry setup, to have an overall worse solution in the end can be a better idea.
Well none of that is true, so there's that. As an added bonus you don't have to exploit security vulns to get root on a Pi.
That's what the $57 new phone has.
EDIT: it was a rhetorical question. Never mind. Keep spending on Rapsberries, while I will keep spending on waterproof devices with a battery/screen/camera that are sold as 'phones'
Well the information is out there and freely available so I'd suggest looking it up if you're posing an earnest question.
That's what the $57 new phone has.
That $57 phone comes preloaded with an antiquated version of Android and lists for $80 (the sale ends in two days).
And you don’t need to trust a sketchy flavor of a phone OS or other sketchy phone subsystems made by vendors who do not have tight controls. Unlike Pi, phones are a highly targeted device type by certain governments including governments of countries where phones are made.
I use mine to run youtube-dl to download audio only versions of YouTube (I like long interviews, talks etc), save data and can listen with screen off.
It's certainly interesting, but IMHO not obviously better.