7 ms·

Raspberry Pi Model A+ Arrives – The Cheapest and Smallest Pi Yet

80 points by funkyy 12y ago

chj 12y ago
Really need upgrade to armv7.
- Narishma 12y ago
  The fact that they haven't upgraded the SoC is a huge advantage.
davidholmesnyc 12y ago
The pi is wonderful for tinkering. But i'm finding it too slow to do most things I want it to do. The beaglebone black is good but I just hate the micro hdmi port.. I wish they put a reg HDMI port on it.
- milsorgen 12y ago
  I've had fun running a Terraria server for 2 people on it. TShock server via Mono and some optimizations and overclocking. Runs fairly well to be honest but looking beyond that I agree it is just too slow to do most things I want to do. I've had my eye on something along the lines of: http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G138745696275 http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code... Quadcore, 2gb of RAM for 65, seems like a nice step up from the Pi.
  - rcarmo 12y ago
    I have a U2 (basically the same as the U3 with less ports), and the thing is so good I used it as a desktop for a couple of weeks (http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2013/02/10/1230 http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2013/02/10/1230) - running NetBeans at a fair clip, to boot. The only thing stopping me from getting a couple of U3s is lack of cash, and I heartily recommend it. The Pi is... Sort of mediocre as a desktop (even as a thin client) and too complex for most hardware projects. We ran a number of them as digital signage clients for a while (https://github.com/sapo/digital-signage-client https://github.com/sapo/digital-signage-client) and eventually moved to Android boxes (https://github.com/sapo/android-signage-client https://github.com/sapo/android-signage-client) because even with the recent improvements to WebKit and X the browser simply wasn't up to par. Worked reasonably nicely with videos, but I keep wondering how much more useful the Pi would have been (for signage, mind you) if they had released their internal Android build. Edit: forgot to mention I have five Model Bs in a cluster (http://github.com/rcarmo/raspi-cluster http://github.com/rcarmo/raspi-cluster) where I run distcc and toy with Java/Clojure/Hazelcast. It's fun, but requires a fair bit of patience. You can check the load here: http://rcarmo.sl.pt:8888 http://rcarmo.sl.pt:8888
    - agumonkey 12y ago
      If only they didn't ask a hard 25$ for shipping.
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Careful -- That's 65 without the necessary eMMC you must buy to boot it. Makes it at least $80 + shipping for the small 8GB eMMC module. These things look nice, but I've read some stories about being difficult to get a custom distro to boot (ie. one other than the default distro downloadable on their site.). If the default spin of ubuntu is good enough for you, that's great, but you probably wont get fedora arm booting or anything. http://www.wandboard.org/ http://www.wandboard.org/ Wandboard is nice -- quad core, 2gb ddr3, 2 mSD slots, SATA, etc. It's a bit more expensive, but from what I've seen creeping the hardware forums, it has better compatibility.
- userbinator 12y ago
  You may want to look at some of the boards based on the AllWinner SoCs, like this one: https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-... AFAIK none are currently cheaper than the RPi, but they're close and you get a lot more features along with a faster (dual-core, even) CPU.
  - kale 12y ago
    There are a few with quad-core. And added benefits like SATA2 connectors and NEON instruction set on the CPU. Granted that only helps if you compile against it (not likely going to help regular daily use), but if you're developing code on a small device, the gains can be huge.
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  I have a model B+ and I find it somewhat slow even when just using it as a media player, the audio out from HDMI is also much worse than the 3.5mm. For $35 it's a great deal but i'd much rather a ~$50 price point with more RAM and a faster CPU, possibly onboard wifi as well.
- jumasheff 12y ago
  Dual core Cubietruck (Cubieboard3) is a good alternative (cons: pins are 'non-standard', i.e. they are placed too close to each other). But quad core (US made) UDOO is better choice for you, if you are in US, since you'll pay less for shipping. Plus, it has Arduino on board.(cons: 1gb RAM, no VGA output). Both models sport reg size HDMI ports and both .
  - Alupis 12y ago
    Udoo isn't bad, except the creators seem to be far better at making hardware than maintaining a linux distro. I've been banging my head into a wall trying to get a non .deb based disto booting. Their kernels are stuck on 3.10.x and are not even current 3.10.x, they're over 6 months without any changes by the Udoo team. Their U-boot is very old as well and has been pretty customized, but the way they do their git repos makes it difficult to determine what commit they started with and what they have modified (they didn't fork the repo, they started fresh with an "initial upload" of a finished and working u-boot for their custom ubuntu image). Anyways -- I'm looking into checking out Wandboard now, as it seems most of the distros that have ARM releases now cover this board natively (no hackery required). http://www.wandboard.org/ http://www.wandboard.org/
- Alupis 12y ago
  check out the wandboard for a lot more horespower: Quad core Cortex-A9, 2GB ddr3, 2 mSD slots, HDMI, SATA port, and all the bells and whistles. http://www.wandboard.org/ http://www.wandboard.org/
Someone1234 12y ago
The B+ still remains a better "buy" for most people/projects. The A+ is a great board if you want to run something using the GPIO or single USB, but most people who buy a Pi are running small Linux servers or even emulator stations which the B+ is substantially better suited for. Can you daisy chain a bunch of USB peripherals off of the A+'s single USB port? Yes. But after you buy the hub, buy the USB ethernet "card," and so on you would have spent much more than $15. Plus you've now lost the size advantage anyway. I see the B+ as being the "development board" and A+ as being the "production board."
- Igglyboo 12y ago
  IMO the only reason to buy an A+ is if you are going to be using these commercially at scale, where the minimal price and power consumption differences are going to add up.
  - jbhatab 12y ago
    Is it even reasonable to use a raspberry pi for production? Wouldn't you want to go custom with an electronics manufacturer at some point?
    - Someone1234 12y ago
      Depends on scale of your product. For example, let's say you have a company which does school scoreboards, you might install 3x a month, 36/year. You can do a custom Pi solution for $35 (+software), or buy the commercial solution for $150+/board. For that type of operation you likely wouldn't make your money back having someone else produce a bespoke board for your 36/year installations. Even at three times that number it likely wouldn't be cost effective. You see this a lot in niche installations. Up until somewhat recently many POS terminals in small stores were just standard desktop PCs wrapped in a custom case and with some custom software (sometimes written in VB6(!)).
      - lucaspiller 12y ago
        > Up until somewhat recently many POS terminals in small stores were just standard desktop PCs wrapped in a custom case and with some custom software Even in larger stores they ran Windows. I used to work for a large supermarket in the UK and the checkouts even now run on Windows NT and Windows XP with a custom UI. There are special versions of Windows for this sort of thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Embedded_Industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Embedded_Industry
joezydeco 12y ago
Zero mentions of "education" in this press release or any of the tech blogs following it. Oh well. Have we given up on that whole thing?
- Alupis 12y ago
  not at all. this isn't a "press release", it's an article by a 3rd party (techcrunch) which focuses on whatever they want. If you check out the official website (www.raspberrypi.org), you will see it's covered in education related things such as classroom experiments, new computer for schools, etc. However it's not all just about schools -- anyone who learns something about Linux, computing, hardware, the internet, etc... from a RPi, well... it's mission accomplished for the foundation.
  - joezydeco 12y ago
    Right, this is the press release/announcement: http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-model-a-plus-on-sale/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-model-a-plus-on-sale... Aside from the price drop, what's the educational benefit? Were kids asking for more GPIO and other uSD options? (Not trying to be a wet blanket, I love dev/eval boards and have been using them for a long time. But my teeth still grind when we all brag about the educational benefits of the RPi but the only results we see in the real world are robots and XBMC clients)
    - Alupis 12y ago
      There's more to the "education" thing than you are realizing. Even if kids only use them for XBMC clients -- they have to learn how to write the image to the SD card and then boot it, etc. Might not be much -- but that's time better spent than just killing more bad guys in CoD. There have been plenty of blog posts by the foundation detailing how students are using RPi's in schools. There's been a few times someone has written into one of the Podcasts I listen to and talked about using RPi's in education right here in the US. Playing with GPIO pins is a great way to get kids excited in circuits, computing, tinkering, etc. There have also been some good examples of taking RPi out to remote areas in Africa and what-not and building a basic computer lounge where people can come and get online, some for the first time in their lives. Now that's inspirational, and educational. There's a lot of copy-cats of the RPi out now -- most of which are slightly more expensive but offer higher performance. It's important to recall that before the RPi, small form factor SoC boards existed -- but usually were twice, three time, or more the price. The relatively cheap cost of the RPi started all this.
mike_ivanov 12y ago
It seems like A+ is aimed squarely at Arduino. Especially with this HAT thing - http://www.raspberrypi.org/introducing-raspberry-pi-hats/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/introducing-raspberry-pi-hats/. Which is kinda cool, because healthy competition is exactly what Arduino ecosystem needs.
Tepix 12y ago
It now enters price regions where it starts to compete with Arduinos. Nice.

80 points by funkyy 12y ago

chj 12y ago

Really need upgrade to armv7.

Narishma 12y ago
The fact that they haven't upgraded the SoC is a huge advantage.

davidholmesnyc 12y ago

The pi is wonderful for tinkering. But i'm finding it too slow to do most things I want it to do. The beaglebone black is good but I just hate the micro hdmi port.. I wish they put a reg HDMI port on it.

milsorgen 12y ago
I've had fun running a Terraria server for 2 people on it. TShock server via Mono and some optimizations and overclocking. Runs fairly well to be honest but looking beyond that I agree it is just too slow to do most things I want to do. I've had my eye on something along the lines of: http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G138745696275 http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code... Quadcore, 2gb of RAM for 65, seems like a nice step up from the Pi.
- rcarmo 12y ago
  I have a U2 (basically the same as the U3 with less ports), and the thing is so good I used it as a desktop for a couple of weeks (http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2013/02/10/1230 http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2013/02/10/1230) - running NetBeans at a fair clip, to boot. The only thing stopping me from getting a couple of U3s is lack of cash, and I heartily recommend it. The Pi is... Sort of mediocre as a desktop (even as a thin client) and too complex for most hardware projects. We ran a number of them as digital signage clients for a while (https://github.com/sapo/digital-signage-client https://github.com/sapo/digital-signage-client) and eventually moved to Android boxes (https://github.com/sapo/android-signage-client https://github.com/sapo/android-signage-client) because even with the recent improvements to WebKit and X the browser simply wasn't up to par. Worked reasonably nicely with videos, but I keep wondering how much more useful the Pi would have been (for signage, mind you) if they had released their internal Android build. Edit: forgot to mention I have five Model Bs in a cluster (http://github.com/rcarmo/raspi-cluster http://github.com/rcarmo/raspi-cluster) where I run distcc and toy with Java/Clojure/Hazelcast. It's fun, but requires a fair bit of patience. You can check the load here: http://rcarmo.sl.pt:8888 http://rcarmo.sl.pt:8888
  - agumonkey 12y ago
    If only they didn't ask a hard 25$ for shipping.
- Alupis 12y ago
  Careful -- That's 65 without the necessary eMMC you must buy to boot it. Makes it at least $80 + shipping for the small 8GB eMMC module. These things look nice, but I've read some stories about being difficult to get a custom distro to boot (ie. one other than the default distro downloadable on their site.). If the default spin of ubuntu is good enough for you, that's great, but you probably wont get fedora arm booting or anything. http://www.wandboard.org/ http://www.wandboard.org/ Wandboard is nice -- quad core, 2gb ddr3, 2 mSD slots, SATA, etc. It's a bit more expensive, but from what I've seen creeping the hardware forums, it has better compatibility.
userbinator 12y ago
You may want to look at some of the boards based on the AllWinner SoCs, like this one: https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-... AFAIK none are currently cheaper than the RPi, but they're close and you get a lot more features along with a faster (dual-core, even) CPU.
- kale 12y ago
  There are a few with quad-core. And added benefits like SATA2 connectors and NEON instruction set on the CPU. Granted that only helps if you compile against it (not likely going to help regular daily use), but if you're developing code on a small device, the gains can be huge.
Igglyboo 12y ago
I have a model B+ and I find it somewhat slow even when just using it as a media player, the audio out from HDMI is also much worse than the 3.5mm. For $35 it's a great deal but i'd much rather a ~$50 price point with more RAM and a faster CPU, possibly onboard wifi as well.
jumasheff 12y ago
Dual core Cubietruck (Cubieboard3) is a good alternative (cons: pins are 'non-standard', i.e. they are placed too close to each other). But quad core (US made) UDOO is better choice for you, if you are in US, since you'll pay less for shipping. Plus, it has Arduino on board.(cons: 1gb RAM, no VGA output). Both models sport reg size HDMI ports and both .
- Alupis 12y ago
  Udoo isn't bad, except the creators seem to be far better at making hardware than maintaining a linux distro. I've been banging my head into a wall trying to get a non .deb based disto booting. Their kernels are stuck on 3.10.x and are not even current 3.10.x, they're over 6 months without any changes by the Udoo team. Their U-boot is very old as well and has been pretty customized, but the way they do their git repos makes it difficult to determine what commit they started with and what they have modified (they didn't fork the repo, they started fresh with an "initial upload" of a finished and working u-boot for their custom ubuntu image). Anyways -- I'm looking into checking out Wandboard now, as it seems most of the distros that have ARM releases now cover this board natively (no hackery required). http://www.wandboard.org/ http://www.wandboard.org/
Alupis 12y ago
check out the wandboard for a lot more horespower: Quad core Cortex-A9, 2GB ddr3, 2 mSD slots, HDMI, SATA port, and all the bells and whistles. http://www.wandboard.org/ http://www.wandboard.org/

Someone1234 12y ago

The B+ still remains a better "buy" for most people/projects. The A+ is a great board if you want to run something using the GPIO or single USB, but most people who buy a Pi are running small Linux servers or even emulator stations which the B+ is substantially better suited for. Can you daisy chain a bunch of USB peripherals off of the A+'s single USB port? Yes. But after you buy the hub, buy the USB ethernet "card," and so on you would have spent much more than $15. Plus you've now lost the size advantage anyway. I see the B+ as being the "development board" and A+ as being the "production board."

Igglyboo 12y ago
IMO the only reason to buy an A+ is if you are going to be using these commercially at scale, where the minimal price and power consumption differences are going to add up.
- jbhatab 12y ago
  Is it even reasonable to use a raspberry pi for production? Wouldn't you want to go custom with an electronics manufacturer at some point?
  - Someone1234 12y ago
    Depends on scale of your product. For example, let's say you have a company which does school scoreboards, you might install 3x a month, 36/year. You can do a custom Pi solution for $35 (+software), or buy the commercial solution for $150+/board. For that type of operation you likely wouldn't make your money back having someone else produce a bespoke board for your 36/year installations. Even at three times that number it likely wouldn't be cost effective. You see this a lot in niche installations. Up until somewhat recently many POS terminals in small stores were just standard desktop PCs wrapped in a custom case and with some custom software (sometimes written in VB6(!)).
    - lucaspiller 12y ago
      > Up until somewhat recently many POS terminals in small stores were just standard desktop PCs wrapped in a custom case and with some custom software Even in larger stores they ran Windows. I used to work for a large supermarket in the UK and the checkouts even now run on Windows NT and Windows XP with a custom UI. There are special versions of Windows for this sort of thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Embedded_Industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Embedded_Industry

joezydeco 12y ago

Zero mentions of "education" in this press release or any of the tech blogs following it. Oh well. Have we given up on that whole thing?

Alupis 12y ago
not at all. this isn't a "press release", it's an article by a 3rd party (techcrunch) which focuses on whatever they want. If you check out the official website (www.raspberrypi.org), you will see it's covered in education related things such as classroom experiments, new computer for schools, etc. However it's not all just about schools -- anyone who learns something about Linux, computing, hardware, the internet, etc... from a RPi, well... it's mission accomplished for the foundation.
- joezydeco 12y ago
  Right, this is the press release/announcement: http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-model-a-plus-on-sale/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-model-a-plus-on-sale... Aside from the price drop, what's the educational benefit? Were kids asking for more GPIO and other uSD options? (Not trying to be a wet blanket, I love dev/eval boards and have been using them for a long time. But my teeth still grind when we all brag about the educational benefits of the RPi but the only results we see in the real world are robots and XBMC clients)
  - Alupis 12y ago
    There's more to the "education" thing than you are realizing. Even if kids only use them for XBMC clients -- they have to learn how to write the image to the SD card and then boot it, etc. Might not be much -- but that's time better spent than just killing more bad guys in CoD. There have been plenty of blog posts by the foundation detailing how students are using RPi's in schools. There's been a few times someone has written into one of the Podcasts I listen to and talked about using RPi's in education right here in the US. Playing with GPIO pins is a great way to get kids excited in circuits, computing, tinkering, etc. There have also been some good examples of taking RPi out to remote areas in Africa and what-not and building a basic computer lounge where people can come and get online, some for the first time in their lives. Now that's inspirational, and educational. There's a lot of copy-cats of the RPi out now -- most of which are slightly more expensive but offer higher performance. It's important to recall that before the RPi, small form factor SoC boards existed -- but usually were twice, three time, or more the price. The relatively cheap cost of the RPi started all this.

mike_ivanov 12y ago

It seems like A+ is aimed squarely at Arduino. Especially with this HAT thing - http://www.raspberrypi.org/introducing-raspberry-pi-hats/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/introducing-raspberry-pi-hats/. Which is kinda cool, because healthy competition is exactly what Arduino ecosystem needs.

Tepix 12y ago

It now enters price regions where it starts to compete with Arduinos. Nice.