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Removing the ethernet port is one of the things they did to get the cost down to 25 dollars. The gfx/video you get for free with the CPU, so I dont think you're
by tinco 14y ago
Removing the ethernet port is one of the things they did to get the cost down to 25 dollars. The gfx/video you get for free with the CPU, so I dont think you're right.
The ethernet was expensive because it consisted of two components, an ethernet chip and a usb hub. A cool side effect of the hub not being in the A is that you can use it as a USB slave too. This is very handy if you want to use the Pi to make a pheripheral device.
- jiggy2011 14y agoI wonder if just providing a wireless chip would be cheaper than just providing ethernet? There must be some cost saving in just removing the video connectors from the board, though I'm not sure if it's any cheaper to get an ARM CPU without an inbuilt GPU.
- tinco 14y agoI think the difference is that you perhaps pay 2cts for a video connector which is directly connected to an output your cpu has and a few euro for a networking chip that requires high quality crystals etc.
- walshemj 14y agoWell wired Ethernet just works in far more cases than faffing around with Wifi - find a spare port and plug it in. You would also have to add connectors for antennas.