“I use the CM5 two ways.
The first is mounted on the identically sized Waveshare Nano baseboard/carrier board. It is used of for Pihole, network monitoring and a Wireguard VPN server combo. with 8GB RAM it runs without issue and is snappy and responsive.
i have used the same type of board as part of a demo class on ethical hacking and countermeasures with a CM4 where it gets mouted inside a router, smart TV and USB power bank. the 5 would be overkill and the issue of power and hat dissipation would become more of an issue
The other is as the main CPU for my HackberryPi CM5 running Kali for whitehat pen testing. It runs well, fast, effective and when plugged into a external monitpr and keyboard/mouse is great for basic reports writing and office related tasks.
It DOES run hotter than the CM4, the power comsumption is higher but the trade off against functionality makes it a very useful and enabling bit of kit.”
“I grabbed the CM5 8GB (no eMMC) as soon as it became available (having missed the first batch) with the intention of trying it out as a replacement for the CM4 4GB that came with my Clockwork Pi uConsole. It then took a little while (with help from the awesome community over there) before I had a properly working system, but now that I do, wow. This is a huge upgrade: what was a fun little toy that didn't really have enough power to do anything other than some light text editing, browsing or terminal stuff (but only one thing at a time) is now an absolute beast that I can rely on for almost any day-to-day task. It gets a little warm (I have a thermal pad coupling the processor with the metal backplate of the uConsole, so it functions as a nice handwarmer) and battery life has inevitably suffered, but these are both expected and acceptable trade-offs.”
“I am using the CM5 along with a developers case to develop an inexpensive low vision computer. With Oscar and espeak, the 'computer' provides text to speech and magnification. The use of a braille display is also enabled. The module with 8 gigs of ram along with a 256 gig SSD is fact enough to provide a very nice user experience. All on a low budget!”
