I dunno, I have had both since the beginning, and I feel on the basis of experience during that era that the Oric-1 just felt tons, tons better. (Still have my Oric-1, long since got rid of the Speccie kit..)
Maybe it doesn't really look like it in pictures, but its quite more usable as a keyboard than most other bits of gear. Much, much better than the ZX Spectrum, anyway .. but I learned to touch type on my Oric, so maybe I'm biased. Also, it can be argued that the Oric was a better machine than the Spectrum - although the Spectrum had far better market traction.
This was a lesson I learned during that era but applied every decade since: its not about the power, its about the users. It doesn't matter if the machine is 'better' on spec; if the market allows for lesser technology, so be it for us developers to follow along.
But .. what is it about the 6502 that made it 'worse' than the Z80? A lot of the other machines in your list used similar CPU's .. even the C64 had a 6502-derived processor (6510) ..
There is absolutely nothing that made the 6502 worse than the Z80, I far preferred programming 6502 asm above Z80 asm.
Don't confuse the machine with the CPU.
Being late to the party and not offering anything that made it stand out at a similar price point was enough to make it a non-starter. I don't fault them for trying though, the '8 bit home computer' was an area that everybody was trying to get into back then.
Eh, the Z80 had a memory move command that was fast and convenient, and successors (Z80K!) that went to 32 bit. Now, the 6809, that was a sweet 8-bit. :)
Maybe it doesn't really look like it in pictures, but its quite more usable as a keyboard than most other bits of gear. Much, much better than the ZX Spectrum, anyway .. but I learned to touch type on my Oric, so maybe I'm biased. Also, it can be argued that the Oric was a better machine than the Spectrum - although the Spectrum had far better market traction.
This was a lesson I learned during that era but applied every decade since: its not about the power, its about the users. It doesn't matter if the machine is 'better' on spec; if the market allows for lesser technology, so be it for us developers to follow along.
But .. what is it about the 6502 that made it 'worse' than the Z80? A lot of the other machines in your list used similar CPU's .. even the C64 had a 6502-derived processor (6510) ..