Raspberry Pi Scheduled to Launch This Month
One serving of Raspberry Pi, coming right up!
Back in December, we heard that the Raspberry Pi mini PC would be available in January. As you've probably noticed, it's already February, and the only availability we've seen is through eBay for upwards of $2500. Obviously, many people don't have a couple of grand lying around to blow on a computer willy-nilly, and there was only a limited number of them available through the auctioning site. However, it seems Raspberry Pi is on track to launch for real this month.
According to the official Raspberry Pi blog, there has been a small delay in manufacturing due to trouble sourcing a specific component. Liz from the Raspberry Pi Foundation writes that the foundation chose a specific quartz crystal package when it thought the motherboards would be manufactured in the United Kingdom and it was the cheapest one they could find. However, in China, the price and size of this particular crystal package has been outdone by a smaller, cheaper one. As a result, the factory was having a bit of trouble sourcing the package the Raspberry Pi crew had designed for.
The good news is that the part has been found and things are back on track. Liz says the first batch of boards will be finished on February 20, after which they'll be air-freighted to the UK for availability before the end of the month. Additionally, the company has been leaning on Broadcom, which produces the BCM2835 SoC powering Raspberry Pi, for an abbreviated datasheet describing the ARM peripherals in the chip. You can check that out here (PDF alert).
For the uninitiated, Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that can plug directly into a TV via an RCA jack or an HDMI port. Users can also connect a keyboard via its one USB 2.0 port, or connect a wireless mouse/keyboard like Verbatim's Mini Wirless Slim set. Two versions will be offered at launch: the $25 Model A with 128 MB of RAM and the $35 Model B which sports 256 MB of RAM and an additional 10/100 Ethernet port -- Wi-Fi can be added using a standard USB dongle.
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Jane McEntegart is a writer, editor, and marketing communications professional with 17 years of experience in the technology industry. She has written about a wide range of technology topics, including smartphones, tablets, and game consoles. Her articles have been published in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, MobileSyrup, and Edge Up.
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stingstang The whole point is that it's a cheap, low-grade computer and people are paying $2500 dollars for it on ebay?Reply -
rhangman stingstangThe whole point is that it's a cheap, low-grade computer and people are paying $2500 dollars for it on ebay?No. I believe they were auctions of prototype boards with the proceeds going to the foundation (Raspberry Pi is a non profit organisation). In fact as I recall one of the winners also donated theirs to a computer museum.Reply -
freggo Can't wait for THG doing a review in it!Reply
Anyone here know what you'd compare it too?
Are there similar products in that usage/performance range?
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Vorador2 One of the cheapest computers ever. Too bad it can't run x86 code, but one can't have everything.Reply -
gsacks freggoCan't wait for THG doing a review in it!Anyone here know what you'd compare it too?Are there similar products in that usage/performance range?Reply
Probably to best thing to compare it to would be a Roku, Boxee, or WD Live box, or the smartTV functionality built into today's sets. The difference with the RasPi being that you load your own software on it, so an installation of XBMC Live or some other slim down linux distro. -
dgingeri How do I contact the makers of this and suggest they build one with an old style serial port, a VGA connector, and a console program for use in IT for programming routers, swtiches, raid arrays, and old style Sun and HP servers? I would really, really like one of these. They could charge $300-400 for one and companies would buy them. We could probably use about a dozen.Reply -
__Miguel_ gsacksProbably to best thing to compare it to would be a Roku, Boxee, or WD Live box, or the smartTV functionality built into today's sets. The difference with the RasPi being that you load your own software on it, so an installation of XBMC Live or some other slim down linux distro.If I remember correctly, the RasPi and the Roku2 share the same SoC (which is why the foundation was able to source the chips at dirt-cheap prices, there was already someone else ordering them), so the major difference will in fact be the OS capabilities, and of course the extra I/O on the RasPi.Reply -
koogco dgingeriHow do I contact the makers of this and suggest they build one with an old style serial port, a VGA connector, and a console program for use in IT for programming routers, swtiches, raid arrays, and old style Sun and HP servers? I would really, really like one of these. They could charge $300-400 for one and companies would buy them. We could probably use about a dozen.Reply
I think http://www.raspberrypi.org/forum/features-and-requests would be the place to go!
Still debating if i should get one. That probably means i should, at this price experimenting with it would be worth it even if I never put it to anything usefull.