Minimum PC specs to run solidoodle

It depends what you want to do with it: if you just want to control the printer, no problem. If you would like to slice, then you need something much faster than that. Be aware that with such a small screen you will need some dedicated host software.

I think in principle you can use the same software available for the PengPod: check these other two threads:

http://www.soliforum.com/topic/1954/ful … uchscreen/

and

http://www.soliforum.com/topic/2205/vis … -software/

The power consumption is much lower than a normal PC, and also lower than a laptop, generally speaking.

The printer itself can be controlled via a decent ARM tablet. I believe there is an affordable Chinese model that our forum members enjoy.

You have no screen, as standard, which is the advantage of the Pengpod.
The Allwinner A10 SoC its based on also runs about 2x the clock speed - so its notably faster. Its blitzes a Pi in side-by-side benchmarks.

If your intention is to use it headless, and connect via VNC from a real computer or use some other network based visualisation - then yes, the Pi is an acceptable alternative.

If however you want standalone printing in the sense of printing with no further peripherals - then the Pengpod is the superior choice due to its better specs and inclusion of a touch screen

If you want to use that I would tear windows off and put Linux on.  I am running my 10+ year old computer with an AMD 2800 and 1 gig of RAM and it works alright, but I had to kill a bunch of stuff in windows to keep it from doing anything else.  I am slicing with it and the times are reasonable but the processor is a lot better than yours.  At some point I might put Linux on it, but for now it works.

Make sure and show us pictures of what you create. By the way - posts about adding things like Rasberry pis to the Solidoodle should most likely go in hacks and mods.