Raspberry Pi - A Credit Card Sized Computer

2012 has seen the launch of a wide variety of computing devices such as tablets and ultrabooks. But the most wonderful one of them, and ironically the least known among them, is the 'Raspberry Pi'. It is a cheap computer, in fact the cheapest in the world, that was launched by a UK company in order to encourage interest in programming among the student community. 

Schematic Diagram Of The Model B RPi

The Raspberry Pi - Looks simple, doesn't it?

From The Website

"The Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into your TV and a keyboard. It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video. We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn programming."

The Raspberry Pi is the ultimate resource for a person from a poor background, who is interested in learning programming. It is also dirt cheap, so it doesn't matter if you screw it up while trying to do something, at least not much.

It comes in two models, A and B. A costs $25 and B costs $35. Here are some technical specs.

The reason the price is so low is because it comes with no monitor, keyboard, mouse or speakers; all have to be bought and connected. But since most of us must already be having these peripherals, it isn't so big a drawback.

Now let's come to the buying part. If you live in the US, you can get the Model B for the stated price, i.e. 35$ (Over here , though stock is currently unavailable). Model A has not been released yet. Amazon is selling the Raspberry Pi for $60 (http://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Pi-Model-Revision-512MB/dp/B009SQQF9C), which is a rip-off. ( Read a comment on the Amazon page - "But it is kind of disgusting that the seller is attempting to resale this item at twice it's original price. Normally I would explain the laws of supply and demand, but for twice the original price? Just wrong.")

The price in India isn't so good either. Kits n' Spares is selling the Model B for Rs 2751 plus Rs 150 for shipping, which comes to around $50. But it's the best option at the moment, and the price isn't so bad, considering the specs. So if you're interested, click on the below picture to go to the Kits n' Spares page: