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Raspberry Pi Foundation release updated Model A+

The Raspberry Pi foundation yesterday released a new iteration of the popular maker board. Previously updates have focused on the more capable networked Model B which has provided wired connectivity. This time around, they have updated the Model A+, previously a first generation Raspberry Pi product.

However, with the Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+, the device uses the same Broadcom 2837 SoC (doubling the clock speed and quadrupling the core count). They also added dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth from the Model 3 B+. It still has the same amount of memory as original Pi Model A+ boards, at 512MB.

The main differences are a reduced USB port count (down to one from four). It is also missing the wired Ethernet port (and the PoE support that this can bring).

The price of the board is $25, which is $10 higher than the Zero W (but you gain a DSI interface to directly drive LCD panels, dual-band WiFi, as well as more and faster CPU cores), and $10 less than the Pi 3 Model B+ (but you lose the Ethernet port). I suspect that if you need the extra processing power, then the new Model A+ suits you better than the Zero W. (The Zero could still win if space is really at a premium). But full connectivity options are still best with the wired Ethernet option of the Model B+.

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