Following its recent fourth birthday, the Raspberry Pi will be released in its third iteration – the Raspberry Pi 3 – with prices starting from $35 (€32).
The Raspberry Pi 3 is the accumulation of a year’s work of upgrading to the board by its developers – The Raspberry Pi Foundation – whose aim is to develop its single-board computers to help kids and beginners learn the basics of computer science and coding.
While, last year, we saw the launch of its smallest board yet, the Raspberry Pi Zero, for as little as $5 (€4.50), this marks the third full board released since the Raspberry Pi 2 was launched in February 2015.
In that time, it has shipped 3m Raspberry Pi 2s, and 8m in total since the foundation began operating in 2012.
So, what hardware are we looking at with the new device?
Image via Raspberry Pi Foundation
Well, for starters, it has a more powerful processor, specifically a 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, which is around 10-times the power of the first Raspberry Pi board.
This is a major bump up from the Raspberry Pi’s 900MHz 32-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU complex, which marks a 33pc increase in clock speed and 50 – 60pc increase in performance in 32-bit mode.
It’s also made major improvements in terms of connectivity, with an integrated 802.11n wireless LAN, as well as Bluetooth 4.1 compatibility.
Perhaps most importantly is the fact that it’s being priced at $35 (€32), the same price as the Raspberry Pi 2.
Full spec for the Raspberry Pi 3 can be found on the foundation’s website.
Raspberry Pi logo image via Scott W Vincent/Flickr
