When the Raspberry Pi was released almost two and a half years ago, Eben Upton of the Raspberry Pi Foundation had clear but limited aims for the project. He hoped to shift a few thousand boards to willing educators as a tool to help teach children more about programming computers. It quickly became apparent that they had actually created a groundbreaking piece of 21st-century tech. The iconic Pi has now reached the three million sales mark.
As British industrial success stories go, from design to manufacture (after production switched from the Far East to the Sony factory in Wales), there can have been few to compare with it in recent years. After the first model was upgraded a few months after its release with double the memory, the B+ has now appeared. We are delighted to be one of the lucky few suppliers in the UK. So what has changed with this new version?
More ports, more pins
The major changes are to the board design rather than the OS or processor, which is still the Broadcom BCM2835 SoC. The B+ has found room for two more USB ports, which is a great improvement. If you wanted to connect a keyboard, mouse and wifi dongle to the previous model you would need a USB hub, which sucked power from the board and added more hardware and wiring to what by its nature should be a small footprint device.
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| The Raspberry Pi Model B+ |
The GPIO connector header has also been extended from 26 to a 40-pin configuration. Existing headers and ribbon cable connectors will still be compatible with the old 26-pin system. The first 26 pins are in the same pinout as previously, but the extra pins give greater capacity to modify and hack the Pi. However, some headers will not be compatible - it will depend on the size of the bezel surrounding the pins (some are wider than the pin spacing).
The Pi now uses a microSD card rather than a standard SD card. As well as the space and physical benefits of dispensing with a large SD card tray, the NOOBS load out means that the Pi will require an 8GB microSD card. 4GB may be enough but it will be a close call! Combining separate audio and video jacks into one composite audio/video connector makes for a sleeker board with two sides free of protruding ports. This will be good news for makers of homebrew enclosures, for whom the Raspberry Pi has been an incredibly fruitful muse.
Less power-hungry
The B+ is less power hungry than its predecessor, consuming 2.8W in idle and under load states, compared to the B's 3.1 and 3.8W. Users who integrate their Pi in embedded applications will appreciate these power savings. Other notable changes include neater mounting options with the addition of a further two pre-drilled holes giving a rectangular configuration.
This is only a short summary, but the model B+ has addressed the (admittedly small) list of concerns some people had about the Raspberry Pi. By adding extra ports and pins the Pi designers have set a new standard for single board computers. With excellent community support, open source content and huge array of accessories this will definitely get more than a B+ on user's report books.
However, if you are thinking of ordering, don't hang around - the shelf of B+ boards in our warehouse is getting emptier by the day!
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| The Pibow Rainbow case for the B+ |
There are a few other exciting add-ons in the Pi-peline - watch this space for details.
Click here to find out more about the Model B+ from Rapid
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