The Raspberry Pi 4 B has been on the market for more than two years and, during that time, we've seen a number of new, related models hit the shelves,

Raspberry Pi 4A Could Skip USB 3, Have PCIe Port

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2021-07-14 22:00:06

The Raspberry Pi 4 B has been on the market for more than two years and, during that time, we've seen a number of new, related models hit the shelves, including an 8GB Raspberry Pi 4, a Compute Module 4 and the Raspberry Pi 400, which is basically a Pi 4 inside a keyboard. However, there's still been no Raspberry Pi 4 A to displace the Pi 3A+.

However, according to Raspberry Pi CEO and Founder Eben Upton, the company has a lot of ideas for a 4 Model A (aka 4A) and might even have built one already, if not for ongoing chip shortages. Upton joined us on the latest episode of our weekly Pi-centric podcast, the Tom’s Hardware: The Pi Cast and gave us some clues about what a Raspberry Pi 4 A could include and exclude, along with the price point he's looking to hit.

For all three previous generations of Raspberry Pi, there are both B and A models. The more popular Raspberry Pi Model B units have a full suite of four USB ports and up to the maximum amount of RAM. The A units are slightly smaller, have fewer ports and features, and cost a bit less. For example, the Raspberry Pi 3A+ goes for $25 and has just one USB port, along with 512MB of RAM while the $35 Raspberry Pi 3B+ has 1GB of RAM, four USB ports and Ethernet. Putting price aside, some users prefer the smaller form factor and lower power consumption of the 3A+.