UK-based Raspberry Pi Foundation has launched the cheapest computer in the world.
The Raspberry Pi Zero is on sale for £4 in the UK, $5 in the US, or for free with the £5.99 MagPi magazine.
“We really don’t think we’ll get any cheaper than this. We’ve gone from say, four lattes, to one latte. We’re not going to go below the cost of one latte,” said Eben Upton, founder of Rapsberry Pi.
“We really hope that’s going to get the last few people in the door and involved in computer programming.”
The programmable computer runs Raspbian and a range of applications, including Scratch, Minecraft and Sonic Pi.
The Raspberry computers is produced in Wales have become the best selling British computer line in history.
The Raspberry Pi Zero features:
- 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
- Raspberry’s smallest ever form factor, at 65mm x 30mm x 5mm
Raspberry said in a blog post on its website:
“Even in the developed world, a programmable computer is a luxury item for a lot of people, and every extra dollar that we ask someone to spend decreases the chance that they’ll choose to get involved,”
“The original Raspberry Pi Model B and its successors put a programmable computer within reach of anyone with $20-35 to spend. Since 2012, millions of people have used a Raspberry Pi to get their first experience of programming, but we still meet people for whom cost remains a barrier to entry”
