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Raspberry Pi celebrates its eighth birthday with a serious price cut

Chuong Nguyen
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Raspberry Pi will soon be celebrating its eighth birthday (officially on February 29), and it’s doing it in style by doubling the memory on its base model while keeping the price the same.

Thanks to declining prices of memory, for this celebration, you can score the 2GB Raspberry Pi 4 for $35. That’s a $10 price drop that makes this upgrade cost the same as the base $35 1GB edition.

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“The fall in RAM prices over the last year has allowed us to cut the price of the 2GB variant of Raspberry Pi 4 to $35,” the company said. “Effective immediately, you will be able to buy a no-compromises desktop PC for the same price as Raspberry Pi 1 in 2012.”

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In addition to the price drop, there’s also been a lot of progress and improvements for Raspberry Pi since the original model debuted eight years ago. Compared to the original the Raspberry Pi, the Raspberry Pi 4 delivers 40 times the CPU performance and eight times the memory. The latest model can also be connected to two displays instead of one, making it even more versatile.

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“When we first started talking about Raspberry Pi 1 Model B back in 2011, we were very clear about what we were trying to build: a desktop Linux PC with interfacing capabilities for $35,” the company explained. “At the time, it seemed obvious that our low price point would come with compromises.” Now, with more powerful components, Raspberry Pi has become more powerful, removing a lot of these compromises while still maintaining the same affordable price of the original model.

That’s not all, though. If you’re looking at the real value of money and account for inflation, Raspberry Pi claimed that the $35 machine from 2012 would cost $40 today. So with this price drop you’re looking at an effective saving of $5 despite the price being the same.

While the price cut was announced to coincide with the eighth anniversary of this flexible — and affordable — computer, the company reaffirmed that the price cut will be permanent. It’s unclear if Raspberry Pi will drop the 1GB edition of the Raspberry Pi 4 computer from its lineup over time, as it’s hard to imagine why makers would opt for that variant when the upgraded 2GB RAM model now starts at the same $35 price.

Those needing more memory can also opt for the 4GB model, which is priced at $55. Since its debut, Raspberry Pi claimed that it has sold more than 30 million of these compact computers to makers, hobbyists, engineers, and educators.

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Chuong Nguyen
Chuong Nguyen
Computing Writer
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