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4 Reasons Why the Raspberry Pi Zero Is Winning at Everything

December 05, 2015 by Alex Udanis

Here are 4 reasons why the new Raspberry Pi Zero will be a huge success and why it's sold out just about everywhere.

The Raspberry PI Zero isn’t a low-calorie dessert: it's the newest member to the low-cost computer family from the Raspberry PI foundation.  A week after being released, it's sold out everywhere and going 6 to 7 times retail price on eBay.  Here are 4 reasons why the Raspberry PI Zero is going to be an awesome success:

1. Market Share

Raspberry PI's have the dominant market share in the hobbyist single board computer market with several million sold. Due to the large market share, there are loads of projects, tutorials, and accessories available for the existing Pi’s.  A lot of those resources will still apply to the new Pi due to a similar processor and the same GPIO header.  Although, without the camera connector, some projects that rely on capturing images won’t be able to be seamlessly ported over.

2. Cost

Even with the accessories that may be needed--such as the HDMI adapter, micro SD card, and header pins--the price is still lower than a genuine Arduino UNO.

3. Capability

Even with such a low cost, the Raspberry Pi Zero has a lot of features. The Pi Zero still has HDMI out, 1GHz processor, and 512Mb of RAM, which makes it quite a functional computer for such a low cost. The capability of this small computer can be compared to that of desktop computers from the mid-2000’s at near 1/40th of the cost.

4. Size

One of the biggest changes, aside from the price of the Pi Zero, compared to its predecessors, is its size. The Pi Zero is 60% smaller than the Raspberry Model B+ version of the Pi. This will lead to smaller and lighter projects in the future, such as Pi Zero powered drones!

 

How are you going to take advantage of the new Raspberry Pi? Let me know in the comments below and be sure to post your project on our message board!

4 Comments
  • A
    apineda December 18, 2015

    Although there are many great features about the Pi, it has one very serious drawback - power consumption. An idling Pi eats up 420mA. The Zero is “only” 80mA, but that is a huge load on a battery for remote sensors. The Pi will make a great Gateway or other A/C line powered type of device, but not suitable for low power remote applications.

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  • dendad February 20, 2016

    The Pi Zero sounds really good. Unfortunately, it is unavailable.
    For it to succeed they will have to work hard on the supply. I would have thought there would have been more here by now.  I’ve a few projects that it will be great for, if only I can get some!

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  • H
    Hellmut1956 March 14, 2016

    I have got the interest of using the Zero to have a panel I am building controllable and being able to monitor it. Its low cost and the possibility to connect it via WiFi to my internal net are the reason, otherwise I would use my existing B+ board. Do you know if it will be available again?

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