A new variant of the Raspberry Pi (Variant, not successor) has been announced and it looks to be pretty exciting.
More Ports
First off, there are more USB Ports (4 in All now, as opposed to Two before). This fixes one of the qualms of the other Raspberry Pi variants. If you are the (proud) owner of a Raspberry Pi, don’t fret, as you can always buy a USB Hub to get more Ports.
“The GPIO header has grown to 40 pins, while retaining the same pinout for the first 26 pins as the Model B”.
Redesigned, but at a Cost
Then the design has been changed, now having a more compact, a more refined design. Also, the fiddly SD Card slot has been replaced by a much-better MicroSD Card Slot.
There also has been a shuffling of ports (The Composite Connector goes under the 3.5mm one, for example). Of course, as a tradeoff to this new design, the Raspberry Pi Model B+ is not compatible with the Cases made for other variants (Cases only, accessories are compatible).
Saving Power
The measly Power Consumption has been optimized even more. This was done by replacing the Linear Regulators with “switching ones”, managing to keep Power Consumption between 0.5W and 1W.
Now there is a dedicated low noise Power Supply for the Audio, so expect better sound.
Striving for Uniformity
The Internals still remain the same, with the same Processor and the same amount (512MB) of RAM. This is due to the wish to maintain uniformity and not trigger incompatibility/fragmentation across the variants.
The End?
A pretty-packed upgrade, ain’t it? And the Raspberry Pi Foundation managed to upgrade it without increasing a penny on the original Price ($35).
The curious thing is, that the Raspberry Pi Foundation wrote: “This isn’t a ‘Raspberry Pi 2’ but rather the final evolution of the original Raspberry Pi”
The other variants, to jog your memory, are the Model A and the Model B Variants. The main differences are the RAM (256MB vs 512MB), the inclusion of an Ethernet Port, and finally the price ($25 vs $35).
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