Raspberry Pi 3 has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a faster processor
Four years after launching the original Raspberry Pi, an ultra-cheap, barebones and tiny but surprisingly versatile PC, the Raspberry Pi Foundation launched the third major iteration of the same product.
The Raspberry Pi 3 has a new, 1.2GHz, 64-bit, quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 processor, offering roughly ten times the performance of the Raspberry Pi 1, according to the foundation. It also comes with integrated 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1, and is fully compatible with both Raspberry Pi 1 and 2.
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The rest of the specs are roughly the same as those of the Pi 2 -- 1GB of RAM, a 400MHz VideoCore IV graphics chip, 4 USB ports, a full-sized HDMI port, an ethernet port, a combined 3.5mm audio and composite video jack, and a microSD card slot -- and of all that fits into a very similar form factor.
Perhaps most importantly, the Pi 3 is currently priced the same as the Pi 2: $35.
According to a blog post by the foundation, the old models will not be discontinued; there's still a sizable demand for both the Pi 1 and 2, and they will coexist with the new model, priced $25 and $35, respectively.
The new model comes a few months after the introduction of Raspberry Pi Zero, an even smaller computer that costs only $5. That device, however, has a weaker processor, less memory and less connectivity than the full-sized Pi 3.
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Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
