“Ultimately, the PC will be a window to everything people are interested in and everything we need to know.” – Bill Gates.
And now the PC fits in our palm, you can carry it anywhere and everywhere. Whether it’s a mobile phone or tablet, google has got you covered. Search anything from anywhere in the world. You’ll find the solution you’re looking for. In spite of so many advancements and innovations in the mobile phones, the mobile phone or tablets still lack some functionality of PCs. We have mobile phones with 6GB RAM, fingerprint sensors, iris scanners and lots more. But there are still some things that you cannot do on mobiles or tablets and you’ll need a PC. Buying an expensive PC or Laptop to do some occasional work is definitely not worthy. But what’s the solution? Well, Raspberry Pi is the answer to your problem. There’s nothing new about Raspberry Pi, but many people still don’t know about it.
Raspberry Pi is a mini-computer having the size of a credit-card. It gives you the functionality of PC and it fits in your pocket. The first Raspberry Pi was released in February 2012. Since then, several models of Raspberry Pi have been released, ranging from $5 to $35. As of 2016, Raspberry Pi 3 Model B is the latest Raspberry Pi, priced at $35.
Raspberry Pi-3 (Model B) :
The Raspberry Pi-3 is the third generation Raspberry Pi. It was released in February 2016 and is bundled with on-board WiFi and Bluetooth. A Raspberry Pi-3 comes with:
- A 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU
- 802.11n Wireless LAN
- Bluetooth 4.1
- 1GB RAM
- 4 USB ports
- 40 GPIO pins
- Full HDMI port
- Ethernet port
- Combined 3.5mm audio jack and composite video
- Camera interface (CSI)
- Display interface (DSI)
- Micro SD card slot
- VideoCore IV 3D graphics core.
The main aim of creating a Raspberry Pi was to promote the teaching of basic computer science in schools and developing countries. Since its release, it has become quite popular and more than 8 million units of it have already been sold, making RaspberryPi be UK’s all-time best-selling computer. The Raspberry Pi can also be embedded in different projects, especially related to IoT. But RaspberryPi Zero is considered to be the most suitable one for such projects as it is cheap as compared to other models (starts from $5) and also consumes less power.
Raspberry Pi is not as good as your PC and it has some limitations. But you can do most of your work with it. Also, the GPIO or General Purpose Input-Output Connector can be used to get input for your program from outside the CPU or to provide output to the user. Hence, you can interact with the outside world with your Raspberry Pi. You can do a lot more with these pins, but these are some advanced things. Let’s not get into it for now.
You can also attach some of these accessories with your Raspberry Pi:
- Pi Camera
- Touchscreen Display
- Audio Card
- NFC Board
- Night Vision Camera
- RaspberryPi Sense Hat (includes some sensors).
- Gertboard (Extension Board)
Raspberry Pi supports tons of Operating Systems. Some of them are:
Also Read: Top 5 Linux Distros
For something that is so cheap, the RaspberryPi is amazingly powerful. But it does have some limitations. You can not play games, use heavy applications, and it also has limited memory and storage. But the affordability and yet powerful performance make it worth every penny.
You can buy Raspberry Pi-3 Model B from here – RaspberryPi.
If you have any query related to Raspberry Pi, let us know in the comments section.
Also, Check this article – How To Install Kodi on Raspberry Pi 3 Using OSMC