Just in time for Pi day, the Raspberry Pi Foundation unveiled its newest model: the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, which sports a faster CPU and nerfed up Wi-Fi capabilities.
The new model comes two years after the preceding Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, but that time frame is just typical of the company's upgrade pattern. Even though it is not a drastic upgrade to warrant a "4" in its name, it still boasts much-needed improvements, such as a beefier processor, dual-band Wi-Fi, and faster Ethernet, to name a few.
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+
The new board now features a 1.4 GHz quad-core processor ARM Cortex-A53 CPU, Dual-band 802.11ac wireless LAN, Bluetooth 4.2, Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0, power-over-Ethernet support, improved PXE network and USB mass-storage booting, and improved thermal management.
Additionally, the Raspberry Pi Foundation confirms that the device's dual-band wireless LAN comes with modular compliance, which should make it less of a hassle for developers to launch products with the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ onboard because getting the Wi-Fi certified by regulators will be easier.
Aside from the improvements above, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is pretty much similar to its predecessor in terms of form factor and ports, so it should work fine on existing Raspberry Pi cases and accessories. It comes with four USB 2.0 ports, a 40-pin GPIO header, one HDMI port, display and camera ports, composite video ports, and four-pole stereo output.
The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is available now for just $35. The company encourages interested consumers to get it from approved resellers.
Those who would like to purchase earlier models instead are in luck, since the company isn't discontinuing those products yet. Raspberry Pi 1B+, Raspberry Pi 2B, and Raspberry Pi 3B will continue to sell for $25, $35, and $35, respectively.
Raspberry Pi
For the uninitiated, Raspberry Pi is a tiny and affordable computer that developers use in various programming experiments. It is a small single board that aids learning of basic computer science. Thus far, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has sold 19 million units globally, and these have been put in schools, homes, factories, and offices. Suffice it to say that because these things are incredibly cheap, they're the easiest ways to start learning about computers and building functional products.
People have used Raspberry Pi computers to build webcams, homemade smartphones, an old-school gaming console, a small arcade cabinet, a smart mirror, a D-I-Y Google Assistant and lots of others.
