Raspberry Pi Foundation is now celebrating its fourth year birthday
The first 256MB Raspberry Pi Model B was first shipped on February 29, 2012, and ever since eight million more units have been shipped, including the Raspberry Pi 2. They became UK’s all-time best-selling computer.
The Foundation grew from a handful of volunteers to more than sixty full-time employees; not forgetting their latest addition, the Code Club.
In celebration of their fourth birthday, the Foundation has launched the new Raspberry Pi 3, a first with the offering of built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and runs on a 64-bit processor; all that for the price of just $35.
The Raspberry Pi 3 is an upgrade from the popular Raspberry Pi 2. The Foundation’s CEO, Eben Upton says the Pi 3 has been in the making for about a year. The Pi 3 has a quad-core 64-bit 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex A53 processor. That is said to be about 50% faster than the 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex A7 chip found in its predecessor.
However, the RAM remains at 1GB, and the graphics properties are 400MHz VideoCore IV graphics. All that hardware are tucked inside a housing with the same dimensions as the predecessor Pi 1.
There no doubt that, users will find the built-in Bluetooth 4.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11n a pleasurable experience with the Raspberry Pi 3. This new upgrades will reduce the need for more USB dongles required for wireless connectivity. However, it does have a 2.5A power supply, which might necessitate you upgrade to a new power source.
Considering Pi 3’s competition like the 64-bit Pine A64, one would wonder why the Foundation did not think of also adding a 4K support feature in their latest offering. In response to that question, the Foundation argues that installing a new video codec block would mean sacrificing backward compatibility; meaning it will no longer be compatible with previous Raspberry Pi products.
You can buy the Raspberry Pi 3 from stockists like Element14 and RS Components for just $35. For more details, click here.