It is said to be a “credit card” sized computer. The B model has 2 USB, 1 ethernet, HDMI video out (plus RCA video out). No purpose-built case has been made yet, so it is a bare PCB.
The FAQ says, “…[G]raphics capabilities are roughly equivalent to Xbox 1 level of performance. Overall real world performance is something like a 300MHz Pentium 2, only with much, much swankier graphics.”
The only stumbling block (for me) seems to be it boots from an SD card, and to get that SD card programmed right might require Linux on another computer.
I’m a sucker for stuff like this, so I might get one. They’re supposed to be available very soon.
I know several people at the Hive (including myself) are looking into
getting these as soon as they start selling them. We have linux at
the space plus several of us run linux so I'm sure we can get a card
made up for you. These look very fun!
Yup, we’re kinda drooling about it. With the exposed low level interfaces, it’s going to give an arduino serious competition as long as they can supply enough to meet demand.
Possible drawbacks - it’s missing analog IO, compatibility with arduino shields, and really low power usage. But you get more than enough in exchange (and shields will be built for it)
Looks like it is going on sale this week almost for sure. Post back to the list if you see it start!
We’ve been looking at this for many months, can’t wait for them!
They have said that they will (knowing the people running this it will be pretty late) have a case ready some time around/during summer. I think this first run is to support the ones they want to give to schools. For what this device does it is already pretty darn low power. I believe it only draws 1 or 2 watts at max CPU usage.
With regards to SD card; it isn’t actually coming with an SD card, but you can buy one from them that has linux on it for a bit extra when you buy the R.Pi.
One last thing. For the first batch you can only get 1 per address to prevent scalpers buying tons and selling on ebay/etc.
Wasn’t sure if it was under 1 Watt. That’s pretty awesome! Unfortunately in this one they didn’t add PoE (which would have been pretty freaking sweet), but they said so many people are asking for it that the next version is probably going to have it.
I know myself and a few other people have been waiting for this since they originally announced that it would be ready in November (only a few months late!). These are going to sell out so quickly. Apparently over 100k people are on their mailing list and the first run is only 10k boards.
