The folks over at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the organization behind the upcoming ARM powered Linux computer, are having a field day today as they have been flooded with emails from enthusiasts and press worried about the availability and pricing of the Raspberry Pi computer as it seems someone made inferrences that then got blown out of proportion in a typical "telephone game" spiral out of control fashion.
We here at PC Perspective are among the many people who are waiting eagerly to get our hands on the fairly powerful ARM powered computer, so naturally this post by Liz over at the official Raspberry Pi website helped up to take a deep breath and relax. The little Raspberry Pi boards are still coming at the end of this month (February 2012), and they will be priced at or below the previously announced prices of $25 for the base model and $35 for the model with more RAM and Ethernet.
The takeaway from the article is that your plans and/or your desire to get your hands on a Raspberry Pi just because (like me) even if you don’t know what to do with it yet are safe. The point of the ARM computers are to bring a low cost, but capable computing platform to the masses for education. Yes, the non profit foundation still needs to make a profit; however, they aren’t about to jack up the price just because they can. Liz further stated that the prices of $25 and $35 will not change, unless they can make them cheaper. "Price is such an important part of what we’re doing in trying to change the way people use computers that we’d be totally, totally mad to move the price point." The caveat is that the casing (that will accompany a package aimed at education customers and includes educational software and an outer shell) may add a bit to the price; however, they are going to try not to keep the price the same.
While they have not given a specific date, they state in a rather direct way (even going so far as to bold the text to get the point across- heh) that "You will be able to buy a Raspberry Pi from the end of February, from this website." The misunderstanding, they state, relates to a statement about a different SKU of the Raspberry Pi that is aimed at education and will have a few extra accessories and features including a case to house the board, written support material, and educational software. This version will come later this year (approximately Q3 2012), and was mixed up with the initial release this month.
Are you ready to get your hands on a Raspberry Pi?
The 20th was the release date
The 20th was the release date wasn’t it? Regardless I want one for a HTPC 🙂
Not sure what the big deal
Not sure what the big deal about this is… The device itself has no programming written to it. Obviously if someone else takes the time to write software for it you can run it, but the idea behind the platform is just to give you the hardware to learn on. I don’t believe there is firmware to just boot up into and install an operating system, someone will need to first program the firmware on your device before you could attempt to put an OS on it.
They say they are
They say they are recommending Fedora for the device which is very easy for the end user. Also they state they are selling pre-loaded SD cards…
I don’t care too much about
I don’t care too much about that RaspberryPi crappy device.
The only ARM board more or less interesting is the Panda Board and it’s not very good neither for that price.
Unless somebody could make a decent motherbard with DIMMs, SATA and USB3, I won’t be interestered because any AMD Fusion platform will be much better.
Have a look at the device.
Have a look at the device. The amount on offer for something so small and so cheap is just awesome. Why on earth would you compare it to AMD fusion products??
I’ve been folowing the Pi
I’ve been folowing the Pi since I heard about it in december, from just a little blurb on england’s Pc Pro Podcast, and now it seems that every tech show I lissen to is getting excited. It’s kinda cool how this stuff goes viral.
I plan to use one of these little babys to replace my curent bathroom system, and if I can get it to work, another one will replace my bedroom system. The main thing that gets me so excited is NO MOVING PARTS, no cooling, no sound what so ever.
A wired conection from my main rig to a couple of these little systems around the home, sharing internet conection and my video archive, would be like a dream. No more constant whirling of fans in every corner of my home, no more 3 page electric bills, all for less than I spend on a game pad.
I just hope I can get one, and get it to work.
Indeed, my main system is a
Indeed, my main system is a power hog, so having this around could def. help save some power when I’m just browsing around the net. If only Netflix would support Linux 🙁
@coco:
Their completely
@coco:
Their completely different types of devices though; it would be like rubbishing a Lano because it doesn’t compare to a 2600K – they’re targeted at 2 different types of user. The people who buy the RP will be happy with it because they don’t want SATA and dims. I can think of very few home server applications that require fusion type performance; I freequently turn old p3 boxes into local dev servers and the speeds that I get are more than acceptable and should increase when I replace them with RP’s.
Loving the idea of the Pi and
Loving the idea of the Pi and remember the days of $1.98 pocket radios…The Pi is but a tool to build on and with.
I cant wait for this, I hope
I cant wait for this, I hope with the fixed specification the demo coders of the world embrace it 🙂 I will be buying several, I always enjoyed coding on a limited fixed hardware platform, Much more fun than coding for the PC. This might be just whats needed to bring about a new generation of bedroom coders (If done right)
This is something I’ve been
This is something I’ve been looking forward to for awhile, huge possibilities from this form factor!
Definitely putting one of these in my car for starters. =D