Raspberry Pi (Model B) - £29.46 @ element14 Farnell (expected delivery within 5 weeks.)

Top Comments (5)

• 
  belovedmonster11 months, 3 days ago71 LikesShow comment toolsReply

  coolfi

  Poor support, cheaply produced from China. When you factor in in the cost of psu and sd-card, costs about the same as others.

  
  
  Poor support? The consequence of these things getting insane hype is theres a ton of support out there. Theres a million and one tutorial videos on youtube alone.
  
  Cheaply produced? Thats the whole idea of the hardware.
  
  From China? You do realise that even the most high end 3k laptops are built in China. To say anything is bad because it is built in China is pretty silly these days.
• 
  pete_l11 months, 4 days ago54 LikesShow comment toolsReply

  Cenobite

  I wonder how many of these will be bought by folk that don't know what to do with them, nor willing to find out.

  Almost all of them. The pattern seems to be:
  Enthuse greatly about "a computer for 25 dollars!!! OMG!!!"
  Wait impatiently for product to arrive
  Complain bitterly about long delivery waits
  Boast when it does arrive, write boring and unoriginal blogs about how great it is
  Go into denial when someone knowledgeable tells you there are better, more functional alternatives for about the same price (and without the wait)
  Download a Linux distro, spend days trying to get it to work
  Pack RPi up and put in cupboard
  Rediscover it in a couple of years, thrink "what's this piece of old junk?" and toss it out
• 
  TimCUK11 months, 3 days ago32 LikesShow comment toolsReply

  It is amazing how many of you have missed the point. The Pi was built as something to help, mainly children, to program, a small, low cost device they could play around with and learn to program without breaking the family PC.
  
  I have two and they both work fine, excellent community support, plenty of stuff coming and most of all educational. Some great additions are coming through for driving the IO and learning about how to program and communicate with connected electronics. XBMC is not bad and similar to the old XBox version which many of us still use, but yes it does need work and that is still coming. SD card speed does make some different IMO and with the with new Linux distros coming it should improve a lot.
  
  I love this device because of what it was intended for: something to program, mess around with and really learn about computers without the risk of breaking something expensive. Whilst there may be other ways to do this, even as a programmer for many years I love the simplicity of this over my powerful dev machines.
  
  Buy one to have fun with, but if you just like to use software this is probably not for you.
• 
  beardyweirdy11 months, 4 days ago24 LikesShow comment toolsReply

  Mine came last week so my son (13) and I had a play with it this weekend. It was really cool to see him writing (and then iteratively refining) simple games in scratch - took me right back to my own adolescence.
  
  Even the simpler things like planning your own case build are fun and engaging - my 9 year old daughter is now also showing an interest and it's her big brother who's showing her the ropes rather than me.
• 
  Adidas Addict11 months, 4 days ago17 LikesShow comment toolsReply

  RRP this, non deal.

• 
  MitchellT11 months, 4 days ago #1Show comment toolsReply

  Thanks for editing the title
• 
  Grrrrrrrrrrr11 months, 4 days ago #2Show comment toolsReply

  Are individuals still buying these and putting them on ebay (at inflated prices) for those too impatient to wait? I've got a couple of them, set up just by following the online "idiot's guides". Accessed in a window on my main Windows PC (using VNC Viewer), they are ideal for those, typically relatively simple, tasks that need a computer running 24x7, as they use so little electricity. That's the real reason for buying one - they pay for themselves. You will need to factor in buying a power supply rated at 5v 1A or more (there have been problems with power supplies, a typical USB-out charger won't do the job) - I'd suggest adding one to the order....
• 
  MitchellT11 months, 4 days ago #3Show comment toolsReply

  Grrrrrrrrrrr

  Are individuals still buying these and putting them on ebay (at inflated prices) for those too impatient to wait? I've got a couple of them, set up just by following the online "idiot's guides". Accessed in a window on my main Windows PC (using VNC Viewer), they are ideal for those, typically relatively simple, tasks that need a computer running 24x7, as they use so little electricity. That's the real reason for buying one - they pay for themselves. You will need to factor in buying a power supply rated at 5v 1A or more (there have been problems with power supplies, a typical USB-out charger won't do the job) - I'd suggest adding one to the order....

  
  
  Thanks for that, now I know what software to use.
• 
  normies11 months, 4 days ago #4Show comment toolsReply

  Ordered - been wanting to get my hands on on of these for ages!
• 
  Adidas Addict11 months, 4 days ago17 Likes #5Show comment toolsReply

  RRP this, non deal.
• 
  Cenobite11 months, 4 days ago4 Likes #6Show comment toolsReply

  I wonder how many of these will be bought by folk that don't know what to do with them, nor willing to find out.
• 
  Singlung209911 months, 4 days ago #7Show comment toolsReply

  Ordered mine afew weeks ago. Just waiting for delivery now :D
• 
  vincenth11 months, 4 days ago2 Likes #8Show comment toolsReply

  You can load XBMC on the Pi now so it will make very good and cheap media stremer.
• 
  mcrook11 months, 4 days ago #9Show comment toolsReply

  Mine ordered cant wait wooooohoooooooo
• 
  pete_l11 months, 4 days ago54 Likes #10Show comment toolsReply

  Cenobite

  I wonder how many of these will be bought by folk that don't know what to do with them, nor willing to find out.

  Almost all of them. The pattern seems to be:
  Enthuse greatly about "a computer for 25 dollars!!! OMG!!!"
  Wait impatiently for product to arrive
  Complain bitterly about long delivery waits
  Boast when it does arrive, write boring and unoriginal blogs about how great it is
  Go into denial when someone knowledgeable tells you there are better, more functional alternatives for about the same price (and without the wait)
  Download a Linux distro, spend days trying to get it to work
  Pack RPi up and put in cupboard
  Rediscover it in a couple of years, thrink "what's this piece of old junk?" and toss it out
• 
  chugerblug11 months, 4 days ago1 Like #11Show comment toolsReply

  vincenth

  You can load XBMC on the Pi now so it will make very good and cheap media stremer.

  
  Just be aware there is no mpeg2 codec which prevents playback of recorded freeview TV for example without transcoding. Not a show stopper but it limits the flexibility as a media centre. It is only £35 though so it's still a bargain
• 
  beardyweirdy11 months, 4 days ago24 Likes #12Show comment toolsReply

  Mine came last week so my son (13) and I had a play with it this weekend. It was really cool to see him writing (and then iteratively refining) simple games in scratch - took me right back to my own adolescence.
  
  Even the simpler things like planning your own case build are fun and engaging - my 9 year old daughter is now also showing an interest and it's her big brother who's showing her the ropes rather than me.
• 
  dms0511 months, 4 days ago12 Likes #13Show comment toolsReply

  Simply checking Raspberry Pi Homepage shows it's freely available and you can order as many as you want http://www.raspberrypi.org/ .
  
  New OS expect imminently that will utilise the the hardware fully "Raspbian, the hard-float optimised port of the Debian operating system for the Raspberry P. Raspbian makes use of the floating-point hardware in the processor at the heart of the Raspberry Pi, an optimisation that we hadn’t been able to take advantage of in our previous soft-float Debian Squeeze and Wheezy releases.
  
  Raspbian is so much faster than the images we’ve been using so far, and we’re really excited about it; we’ll be encouraging all of you Raspberry Pi owners to upgrade to it as soon as it’s available on our downloads page."
  
  Also looking at the Forum shows how to overclock the CPU and RAM and overvolt as well if you wish - to make this very very fast.
  
  Superb user support from many many people who really understand the project.
  
  

  
  Edited By: dms05 on Jul 16, 2012 10:45
• 
  shippyt11 months, 4 days ago #14Show comment toolsReply

  Managed to get one of the first ones, put Debian on it, put it back in the box and it's been there since.
  
  Will be useful when XBMC is running with full codec support but for most people they won't find a Pi particularly useful.
  
  It's like most things, until there's a big dev community then uses are limited.
• 
  solid11 months, 4 days ago #15Show comment toolsReply

  Didn't realise that Raspbian was available/on its way
  Thanks, dms05
• 
  Russ262611 months, 3 days ago12 Likes #16Show comment toolsReply

  Will it run Crysis?
• 
  YolkiePolkie11 months, 3 days ago1 Like #17Show comment toolsReply

  Go! Go! Go!
• 
  earwolfigz11 months, 3 days ago1 Like #18Show comment toolsReply

  welded mine into zx81 case and solved some VERY important theoretical problems, then sold on ebay for £1.50
• 
  DudeyGeeza11 months, 3 days ago2 Likes #19Show comment toolsReply

  pete_l

  Cenobite

  I wonder how many of these will be bought by folk that don't know what to do with them, nor willing to find out.

  Almost all of them. The pattern seems to be:
  Enthuse greatly about "a computer for 25 dollars!!! OMG!!!"
  Wait impatiently for product to arrive
  Complain bitterly about long delivery waits
  Boast when it does arrive, write boring and unoriginal blogs about how great it is
  Go into denial when someone knowledgeable tells you there are better, more functional alternatives for about the same price (and without the wait)
  Download a Linux distro, spend days trying to get it to work
  Pack RPi up and put in cupboard
  Rediscover it in a couple of years, thrink "what's this piece of old junk?" and toss it out

  
  
  this is so true.
  
  then there are the ones that swear on their mum that it plays 1080p movies (good bitrate ones!) without stutter... cough... lol..
  
  oh but but there are more codecs out or coming out or its nearly out of beta, etc etc.....
  
  just buy a cyclone micro or something if its a media centre you want ffs lol
• 
  Gazzie11 months, 3 days ago #20Show comment toolsReply

  I still don't understand the hype behind this product. Isn't it easier / cheaper to install a Virtual Machine on your existing computer and dabble with Linux?
  
  I was considering getting one for XBMC, from from initial looks into the user forums, it looks like it won't run it properly. AirPlay and Netflix are not currently supported.
  

  
  Edited By: Gazzie on Jul 16, 2012 11:36

• previous
• next
• • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • ...
  • 14

Post a Comment