RASPBERRY PI ZERO: THE $5 COMPUTER

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James C · #1 Post by **James C** » Fri 27 Nov 2015, 00:36

RASPBERRY PI ZERO: THE $5 COMPUTER

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-zero/

Today, I’m pleased to be able to announce the immediate availability of Raspberry Pi Zero, made in Wales and priced at just $5. Zero is a full-fledged member of the Raspberry Pi family, featuring:

A Broadcom BCM2835 application processor
1GHz ARM11 core (40% faster than Raspberry Pi 1)
512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM
A micro-SD card slot
A mini-HDMI socket for 1080p60 video output
Micro-USB sockets for data and power
An unpopulated 40-pin GPIO header
Identical pinout to Model A+/B+/2B
An unpopulated composite video header
Our smallest ever form factor, at 65mm x 30mm x 5mm
Raspberry Pi Zero runs Raspbian and all your favourite applications, including Scratch, Minecraft and Sonic Pi. It is available today in the UK from our friends at The Pi Hut and Pimoroni, and in the US from Adafruit and in-store at your local branch of Micro Center. We’ve built several tens of thousands of units so far, and are building more, but we expect demand to outstrip supply for the next little while.

ally · #2 Post by **ally** » Fri 27 Nov 2015, 01:51

ordered a couple, 3 vendors had already sold out

eric52 · #3 Post by **eric52** » Sat 28 Nov 2015, 04:58

Incredible! The connectors cost more than the computer. Reminds me a little of the cheap Japanese transistor radios that ran on expensive batteries. Even if they don't manage to get one to every kid on the planet, this is proof positive that computing will soon be universal at trivial cost. That will be more of a game changer than the printing press.

#4 Post by **ttuuxxx** » Mon 30 Nov 2015, 08:03

I was looking for one but most places are selling them at ridiculous prices, Actually one guy on ebay selling one for $120 plus shipping, crazy. So I started looking over different Pi boards, like the orange pi, for $35 you can get one delivered with double the memory and cpu and has a case and power supply compared to the zero, But the orange only has 2usb, http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product ... 14550.html
But the you can get a Orange Pi Plus 2 which has 2gigs of memory and 4 usb's but its like 4 times the costs, Then you have Banana Pi's and probably the best Raspberry pi which is the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, the Zero is a bit faster but has 50% ram. I'm sure if they tested speeds on the zero verses Pi 2 Model B, I bet the Pi2 would win. really I'm just looking for one to view youtube videos for my kids using wireless, lol get them off the main smart tv

. I must of spent 20hr+ looking for the best deals and specs. lol Which one would you guys get, A Raspberry, Banana or Orange Pi?, I do like the cases For the Raspberry.

dancytron · #5 Post by **dancytron** » Mon 30 Nov 2015, 09:30

If you want one, just wait a month until production catches up with demand.

The whole price gouging thing has happened with every other version they've sold so far. In a month the back order delay will be gone and you'll be able to buy as many as you want for $5 plus tax and shipping.

#6 Post by **ttuuxxx** » Mon 30 Nov 2015, 16:40

dancytron wrote:If you want one, just wait a month until production catches up with demand.

The whole price gouging thing has happened with every other version they've sold so far. In a month the back order delay will be gone and you'll be able to buy as many as you want for $5 plus tax and shipping.

Yes I noticed that, but Like I mentioned there are faster Pi versions already, I was wondering which one would you guys buy, Pi 2 or orange Pi plus or banana Pi? I'm thinking zero pi is off the table until they come out with v2 with double the memory.
ttuuxxx

gcmartin · #7 Post by **gcmartin** » Mon 30 Nov 2015, 18:24

We now have a reason to discard those old P1/P2/P3's which are not upgradeable and require more electricity in an hour than this would use in a 24hour day.

Yes, our world is changing rapidly.

starhawk · #8 Post by **starhawk** » Mon 30 Nov 2015, 18:41

gc, you're thinking of the Pentium 4, not its predecessors. Pentium 3 pulls about the same as a Pentium M (IIRC), and the P2 and P1 even less. P2 in my Dell Latitude CPi is a 15w module. P3 is what ALL (except Atom) later Intel stuff is based on -- it's an excellent design. P1 anything (and most P2 stuff, really) is too old for anything but nostalgia gaming.

Netburst (the P4 microarchitecture) was insanely resource-hungry. Lowest power consumption was a bit under 45w (one incandescent lamp, a nightlight, and a cheap multi-LED flashlight) and the highest was 115w (!) (one yard floodlight, three nightlights, and three stout flashlights). Gee whillikers, Batman, that's a lot of electricity!

...and they weren't even all that good, despite what they sucked up at the outlet...

dancytron · #9 Post by **dancytron** » Mon 30 Nov 2015, 20:29

ttuuxxx wrote:
dancytron wrote:If you want one, just wait a month until production catches up with demand.

The whole price gouging thing has happened with every other version they've sold so far. In a month the back order delay will be gone and you'll be able to buy as many as you want for $5 plus tax and shipping.
Yes I noticed that, but Like I mentioned there are faster Pi versions already, I was wondering which one would you guys buy, Pi 2 or orange Pi plus or banana Pi? I'm thinking zero pi is off the table until they come out with v2 with double the memory.
ttuuxxx

I have one of the original Pi B's. I don't play with it anymore, but it admirably serves as a headless print server freeing my old laptop from sitting by the printer all day. It has 1/2 the RAM and is slower than the Pi Zero.

If I was going to buy another one, I'd get a Pi 2. It's $35, which is still really cheap, it is more powerful and has 4 usb ports and a network port.

I'd stay away from the orange, banana, etc knockoffs. They just don't have any support or community.

The Pi Zero is really a niche product. The Raspberry Pi people themselves say as much. For a person who wants one or two of them and isn't desperately poor, the Pi 2 is the one you want.

But imagine you are a school district or run some sort of program in a third world county and need to buy 10,000 of them. The difference between $50,000 and $350,000 is real money. Or if your going to do some kind of home automation thing and need 20 of them. Or you've got some special project where you need the tiny size or low power use.

#10 Post by **ttuuxxx** » Mon 30 Nov 2015, 21:34

Ok here's the specs

Banana PI PBI-M3 hardware: 1.8GHz ARM Cortex-A7 octa-core processor, 2GB LPDDR3 SDRAM, plus wifi and sata 2 built in.
Lots of OS images http://www.banana-pi.org/download.html

Orange Pi Plus2, can run Android 4.4 , Ubuntu, Debian, Rasberry Pi Image, it uses the AllWinner H3 SoC, and has 2GB DDR3 SDRAM, wifi, sata 2, 1.6GHZ tons of OS images http://www.orangepi.org/downloadresources/

Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU,1GB ram, no built in wifi and no built in sata 2 support.

The Banana and Orange Pi's out do the Raspberry Pi via spec sheets.

ttuuxxx

nubc · #11 Post by **nubc** » Tue 01 Dec 2015, 01:08

Where do you put it? Some old cigar box, an old bandaid container?

starhawk · #12 Post by **starhawk** » Tue 01 Dec 2015, 01:58

The Zero can fit in an Altoids tin with plenty of room to spare. (There's almost twice as much room as needed!) Please do use standoffs, or at least insulate the back before foam-taping (etc) it down -- you don't want to short it out, especially since they're heavily backordered EVERYWHERE at the moment. (No, really -- the fleecers on eBay are being absolutely shameless this time. $40 and up IIRC, and the image in the listing shows the $5 original price tag.)

There are also cases out already. Hit up fleaBay, shAmazon, Adafruit, wherever -- they're there.

gcmartin · #13 Post by **gcmartin** » Tue 01 Dec 2015, 03:11

Real world use of the Zero, seen here.

Rasberry Zero needs - Needs for a functioning system and costs

Code: Select all

USB powered hub	$30
wireless USB	$20

3 cords $20-$25
HDMI to mini-HDMI male2male	TV to RPi
USB to mini-USB female2male	USB hub to RPi
USB to mini-USB male2male 	Power to RPi

Although a good deal, IMHO, the Intel stick seems like a better deal at $85 because I can use x86 software, today. Next version is expected to be x86-64bit due before CES (US) at around the same price-point.

Edited: It is recommended that you have a POWERED hub. That hub supports powering the Rasberry Zero and the USB peripherals that would be used by the Zero's OS. This is important to Zero use bringing adequate power requirements.

slavvo67 · #14 Post by **slavvo67** » Tue 01 Dec 2015, 03:29

GCMartin makes a good point. By the time you purchase all the add-ons to make it work, it may no longer be the bargain that it initially appears to be.

#15 Post by **ttuuxxx** » Tue 01 Dec 2015, 06:38

After 3 days of looking at specs, Watching youtube videos, around 50hrs++, lol I went with the Raspberry pi 2 kit, I found it on-sale with Cyber-Monday http://www.amazon.ca/CanaKit-Raspberry- ... ds=canakit also got a keyboard for it http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00KF9I ... ge_o01_s00
ttuuxxx

harii4 · #16 Post by **harii4** » Wed 02 Dec 2015, 00:45

My zero should be here in three more days.

Been using/building raspberry 2 B to replace my two year dead desktop.
Been using it for the past 2-3 weeks after 2 years of just using Android phone due to no internet.

Almost have it portable just need to cut down wires and puppyized it.
Planning to use the zero to cut size down.

harii4 · #17 Post by **harii4** » Wed 02 Dec 2015, 01:31

Lot more work to do.

#18 Post by **Flash** » Wed 02 Dec 2015, 01:38

More hands-on with the Raspberry Pi Zero: Loading, booting and configuring
It seems he's booting some variety of Linux, but he never says which one, at least in this article.

#19 Post by **ttuuxxx** » Wed 02 Dec 2015, 03:16

harii4 wrote:My zero should be here in three more days.

Been using/building raspberry 2 B to replace my two year dead desktop.
Been using it for the past 2-3 weeks after 2 years of just using Android phone due to no internet.

Almost have it portable just need to cut down wires and puppyized it.
Planning to use the zero to cut size down.

The Raspberry pi 2 I ordered should be here Friday or Monday. I feel like a kid again getting my first C-64. lol I purchased it then told the wife, she was ok with it, it surprised me, usually she would have something to say. I like the white/red case better than the high gloss black. I might order the case from fasttech for $7.60 USD including shipping, they also have heat sinks for under $2 delivered https://www.fasttech.com/search?raspberry%20pi only thing the free shipping is very very very slow. 3-10 weeks. I can wait that long because I already have a case and heatsink that comes in the kit.
ttuuxxx

jamesbond · #20 Post by **jamesbond** » Wed 02 Dec 2015, 03:59

[out of topic rant]
May be it's too late to point out that the core SoC in Raspi is created by the same company that makes the most Linux, open-source-friendly company wifi chips --- so open that if you want to get it to work in Linux you need to compile out-of-tree kernel drivers which aren't regularly updated for new kernels; and the firmware of which you need to fish out from Windows drivers (remember b43-fwcutter anyone? As recently as a few months ago I still have to use a similar tool to cut the bluetooth firmware for this oh-so-open-source-friendly chip from my Windows install).

I had one of those amazingly-open wifi/bt-combo chips in my laptop - so very open that I had to throw it out and replace with an Intel wifi chip because even with the company-provided driver the connection is crap/drops out like raindrops, and bluetooth connection to a bt-speaker stutters.

And let's not forget whatever happened to Odroid-W.

I know "practicality trumps everything" is Linus mantra and "right tool for the job" is our mantra but seriously guys, with so many other alternatives?
[/out of topic rant ends]

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RASPBERRY PI ZERO: THE $5 COMPUTER

RASPBERRY PI ZERO: THE $5 COMPUTER