Welsh-Made £4 Raspberry Pi Zero Lowers Cost Of Computing

The Raspberry Pi Foundation hopes its cheapest-ever device will continue to lower the cost of computing hardware.

The Raspberry Pi Zero will cost just $5 (£4), and is the company’s smallest-ever device, measuring just 65mm long and 30mm wide. It is available from today across the UK and US, and is even being given away free with each copy of the December issue of enthusiast magazine The MagPi.

Raspberry Pi Zero

Made in Wales, the Raspberry Pi Zero comes equipped with a Broadcom BCM2835 application processor sporting a 1GHz ARM11 core (making it 40 percent faster than the original Raspberry Pi 1), and 512MB of RAM.

There are slots for a micro-SD card, a mini-HDMI socket for 1080p60 video output, and micro-USB sockets for data and power, giving developers and programmers a wide range of options when it comes to what to do with the device.

As for software, the Raspberry Pi Zero runs the company’s Raspbian operating system, and is able to support some of the most popular existing applications for previous devices, including Scratch, Minecraft and Sonic Pi.

“Of all the things we do at Raspberry Pi, driving down the cost of computer hardware remains one of the most important,” Raspberry Pi founder Eben Upton wrote in a blog post announcing the release.

“Even in the developed world, a programmable computer is a luxury item for a lot of people, and every extra dollar that we ask someone to spend decreases the chance that they’ll choose to get involved.”

The news is the latest positive announcement from Raspberry Pi, which released the second generation of the device back in February.

Since September, Raspberry Pi has also been able to support touch-screen interfaces thanks to a new development from the company, which is making the seven inch displays available for around $60. Overall, the Raspberry Pi Foundation reportedly has sold more than five million units.

Last week, the company gained another major supoporter after Microsoft announced that the Raspberry Pi 2 was replacing Intel’s Galileo board as its device of choice in the company’s Dev Centre.

Do you know how many raspberries are used in the making of a Raspberry Pi? Take our quiz!