Raspberry Pi 3 A+

How does a more compact and more economic Raspberry Pi sound to you? The Raspberry Pi 3 A+ is here and like the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ it boasts a 64-bit quad core processor running at 1.4GHz dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2/BLE. The RPi3 A+ is still equipped with the same 64-bit processor as the B+ version but has removed the Ethernet connector and three of the USB ports (leaving you with just one). It still also has the same 2x20 GPIO header and CSI/DSI connectors making it usable with all of your existing HATs cameras and other peripheries. This single-board computer is capable of many of the things your desktop PC does like spreadsheets word processing and playing high-definition video and games. It can run several flavors of Linux and is being used to teach kids all over the world how to program… Oh yeah and it does all that for about $30. As mentioned before the Raspberry Pi 3 A+ features the Broadcom BCM2837 an ARM Cortex-A53 64-bit Quad Core Processor System-on-Chip operating at 1.4GHz making it both small AND powerful. Since the A+ version only has a single USB port you may want to add more you can still use a USB hub to provide enough connectivity for a mouse keyboard or anything else that you feel the RPi needs. Keep in mind it is recommended that you use a powered hub so as not to overtax the onboard voltage regulator. Powering the Raspberry Pi 3 A+ is easy: just plug any 5V/2.5A USB power supply into the microUSB port. There’s no power button so the RPi will begin to boot as soon as power is applied. To turn it off simply shut down the Pi 3 A+ then remove power. On top of all that the low-level peripherals on the RPi make it great for hardware hacking. The 0.1" spaced 40-pin GPIO header on the RPi gives you access to 27 GPIO UART I2C SPI as well as 3.3 and 5V sources. Each pin on the GPIO header is identical to its predecessor. If you are planning to run a NOOBS card with the RPi3 A+ make sure that it is up to date with the latest version!