The Raspberry Pi Foundation has unveiled an all-new board, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+, and as ever it’s super-affordable at just $25 or £23, whilst packing all the power of the more premium Model B+.
The Raspberry Pi 3 A+ is essentially a shrunk down version the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B+ (its current flagship and most powerful board), offering the same 1.4GHz clock speed and 5GHz Wi-Fi in a smaller form factor.
That impressive clock speed comes courtesy of a 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, which is bolstered by 512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM, while the wireless LAN supports 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (though as we now know, that’ll soon be known as Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 5 etc) and Bluetooth 4.2 and Bluetooth LE.
The key difference between the Pi 3 Model A+ and the B+ is that the even more affordable new board lacks the Ethernet port of the latter and only offers a single microUSB port. These are the two key reasons why it’s able to be both smaller and cheaper – it’s the same size as the original 2014 Model A+ measuring 65mm × 56.5mm and features the same 40-pin GPIO header, so you’ll have no problem adding it to your existing builds.
Other features include a full-sized HDMI port with support for 1080p monitors and TVs, a 4-pole stereo AV output jack, a display port, and a camera port, while storage is of the external microSD variety as before.
An official Pi Foundation case for the Model 3 A+ will follow today’s board launch and be released in December in time for Christmas, with the Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ available from all the usual Pi Foundation-backed sellers, including Pimoroni, ThePiHut, and ModMyPi in the UK. New Raspberry Pi boards (especially when released at this clever time of year) have been known to sell out quickly, so act fast to ensure you don’t miss out.
The Pi Foundation says that the Raspberry Pi 3 A+ will remain in production until at least January 2023, with support expected long thereafter.
Check out the droll video below for an overview of the product.
Related: Best Raspberry Pi projects
Let us know what you make of the new Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ on Twitter @TrustedReviews.
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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.
