A new version of the Raspberry Pi, the $35 credit card-sized computer, will have a few design changes that will make it more robust, and it will still come with the same low price tag. For those that aren’t familiar, the Raspberry Pi is a low-cost, low-powered full computer that has been used by everyone from tinkerers to educators to gadget-makers. Developed by the UK-based Raspberry Pi Foundation and first launched commercially in 2012, more than 3 million Raspberry Pi boards have been sold. For $35, users get a super-tiny computer that can run Linux and be used in a variety of situations. A whole secondary industry has cropped up around the device, with third parties creating everything from add-on modules to cases to specific appliance builds.
The latest version of the Raspberry Pi Linux computer, known the as Model B+, has just been released. The device went on sale today with the same $35 price tag as the Model B, but with a few additional tweaks and improvements designed to address the most frequent requests from Raspberry Pi tinkerers. The new additions should make Pi a more convenient and compelling platform to build upon as competition for developers of low-powered devices grows. Founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation Eben Upton said it’s not “Raspberry Pi 2” but rather the “final evolution of the original Raspberry Pi”, and so the Model B+ board retains many of the same core elements of its predecessor but in a more coherent design. The new additions should of Pi builders a device that’s more convenient and powerful ARM platform to build upon at the same old price. The Model B+ retains the ARM-based Broadcom BCM2835 chipset, 512MB of RAM, and 700MHz low-power ARM1176JZ-F applications processor, but replaces the SDCard in previous models with the more space efficient microSD, which is still placed on the left hand side of the device. The new model also comes with rounded corners and four mounting holes in a rectangular arrangement. Raspberry Pi director of hardware James Adams said this should make it easier to plug in boards on top of the device.
