The Raspberry Pi low cost Linux microcomputer which has fired up a cottage industry of makers and hardware tinkerers since hitting the market in early 2012 — even enabling multiple Pi-powered startups — just got even cheaper.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced an updated version of its Model A board, called the Model A+, along with a $5 price drop to just $20. The new Model A board is also smaller and more energy-efficient than its predecessor.
Raspberry Pi co-founder Eben Upton confirmed an A+ was coming soon in an on stage interview at Disrupt Europe last month.
Other improvements in the Model A+ are more GPIO, with 40 pins now on offer, a micro SD card slot replacing the SD slot, and improved audio. The additional GPIO means the A+ is compatible with the new Hardware Attached on Top standard for Raspberry Pi add-on boards. Some stuff on the A+ hasn’t changed: there’s still only a single USB port, no Ethernet and 256MB of RAM.
The Foundation recently rebooted its Model B board with a B+ update, which also expanded the capabilities and flexibility of the board but maintained the $35 price-tag. It’s taken some of that work and applied it to the A+, noting that the latter “inherits… many improvements that we made to the Model B+”.
Shaving a further $5 off the price of the Model A+ is undoubtedly the most exciting development here. The Foundation dubs it “pretty mind-bending” to get the price down to $20 while continuing to manufacture the board in the U.K.
Price aside, the Model A+’s smaller size is also likely to get makers thinking caps’ smoking, given it will be possible to squeeze it into more places.
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In an interview with Linux Voice discussing the new Model A+, Upton said the original Model A board has been somewhat overlooked, given there was only $10 between that and the more powerful Model B/B+ many people opted for the latter by default. But he argues the lower energy consumption of the Model A board means it can be a better choice for certain types of projects.
In other words, less is sometimes more. And (microcomputer-powered) horses for courses.
“It’s easy for people to look at the Model A and think it’s just a cheaper variant of the B. When they look at it like that they might as well just go for the deluxe model since it’s only an extra $10,” Upton told Linux Voice. “I feel like some people missed out on why the lower-power model like the Model A can make sense. If you’re building something with robotics, or essentially any project that doesn’t need Ethernet networking, it’s a great fit.”
Upton also reveals that Google’s Eric Schmidt played a role in squeezing the Model A price-tag down to $20, telling him to “try and be as cheap as possible… try and get as close to free as you can”.
Mountain View’s interest in Pi extended to giving the Foundation a $1 million grant last year to fund 15,000 Pis for U.K. schoolkids to help them learn to code.
