Is there a more wholesome organisation in tech than the Raspberry Pi Foundation? The folks that have been warming cockles in this cynical old tech world have done it again today, by doubling the RAM of its base Raspberry Pi 4 model.
The non-profit is now offering the latest version of its motherboard for $35/£34, with 2GB of RAM instead of the standard 1GB.
A permanent price cut was announced to commemorate the group’s eighth birthday and represents a $10 saving. It’s the same price as the first RPi, released in 2012, but world’s apart in terms of the tech on offer.
Related: Best Raspberry Pi projects
It’s roughly forty times more powerful than the original, which was simply designed to get more kids involved in coding. The makers reckon that, for the first time, there are no compromises for the average PC user.
https://t.co/eGDHzgfm8E pic.twitter.com/nJEj0E5BHT
— Raspberry Pi (@Raspberry_Pi) February 27, 2020
The Raspberry Pi foundation’s founder Eben Upton explains on the firm’s official blog: “Many of you set your alarms and got up early on the morning of 29 February 2012, to order your Raspberry Pi from our newly minted licensee partners, RS Components and Premier Farnell.
“In the years since, we’ve sold over 30 million Raspberry Pi computers; we’ve seen our products used in an incredible range of applications all over the world (and occasionally off it); and we’ve found our own place in a community of makers, hobbyists, engineers and educators who are changing the world, one project, or one student, at a time.”
30m sold since 2012 when original target was 15K. I learned recently that on launch day they had something like 10 working models in their hands with roughly 2000 due to arrive from China in the next month or so.. https://t.co/iUyuyKtVqB
— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) February 27, 2020
If you’re comparing this with the ever-rising costs of smartphones, which manufacturers seek to justify by talking up the improved tech, here’s some food for thought. Compared to the original Raspberry Pi, here’s what the fourth iteration offers:
- 40× the CPU performance
- 8× the memory
- 10× the I/O bandwidth
- 4× the number of pixels on screen
- Two screens instead of one
- Dual-band wireless networking
Does someone want to explain to use why the prices of smartphones have surged past £1,000 in the last few years then? Insert Willy Wonka meme here.
You can snag yourself an RPi 4 at the Pi Hut. Enjoy yourselves.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.