In fairness the TI launchpads are astoundingly cheap -- as far as I have seen, very few of the other competitors have dev boards at that sort of price. The mbe

In fairness the TI launchpads are astoundingly cheap -- as far as I have seen, very few of the other competitors have dev boards at that sort of price. The mbed board is similar to the mini, but with an online IDE (not a fan) and community. There's not much difference in price there, at least not from the mbed suppliers here in the UK vs the kickstarter prices.