Today, the Raspberry Pi foundation announced the Raspberry Pi 4, a huge upgrade over its predecessors with nearly 3x the CPU performance, more RAM options, and support for multiple displays starting at the same price as the previous model; just $35.
If you aren’t familiar with the Raspberry Pi, it’s a tiny computer about the size of a deck of cards, complete with a CPU, RAM, USB, Ethernet, and HDMI on board. All you need is a USB power adapter, a microSD card, and (optionally) a case of some sort to get up and running. While you could use it as a desktop computer, the Raspberry Pi is best suited for single-use devices like a media player or portable retro gaming console or, if you’re handy with a soldering iron, more advanced DIY projects.
The latest addition to the Pi family packs a 1.5GHz quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A72 CPU, which the foundation claims should be about 3x faster than the CPU on the Raspberry Pi 3. More interesting, however, is the option to add more RAM to your Pi: while previous models were only available with 1GB of memory, the Pi 4 is available in 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB flavors (with prices to match: $35, $45, and $55, respectively). With that much RAM, you could actually use this thing as a super-basic desktop PC, provided you didn’t need to open too many browser tabs or do CPU-intensive tasks. It’s still a low-powered ARM processor, after all.
The Pi 4 also has native gigabit Ethernet and built in 802.11ac Wi-Fi, plus a Bluetooth upgrade to version 5.0. Two of the four USB ports have been upgraded to USB 3.0, and the power cable now connects via USB-C rather than the older microUSB (which is not only a better connector, but adds 500mA of current to make sure your USB devices get the power they need). Finally, instead of a single full-size HDMI connector, the Pi 4 has two mini HDMI ports.
