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Raspberry Pi Adds 100,000 Units to Supply Chain, Back to Pre-pandemic Levels in 2023:
For Raspberry Pi enthusiasts it must seem that Christmas has come a few weeks early this year. Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton announced via the official blog that a 100,000 units had been secured for single-unit sales (one unit per customer) and that by the second half of 2023 it is expected that will return to pre-pandemic levels. This is good news for those who have felt the bite of the supply shortage that has dogged the Raspberry Pi for well over a year. The bad news? Raspberry Pi Zero and Zero W see a $5 price increase, but the Raspberry Pi Zero will be available for bulk purchase in 2023.
[...] In the blog post, Upton acknowledged the patience of the community and offers the 100,000 units, made up of Raspberry Pi Zero W, 3A+ and Raspberry Pi 4 2GB and 4GB for single-unit sale. We don't know the breakdown of how many of each model there will be, but Upton does indicate that it is likely that Raspberry Pi Zero W will come back into stock first. Following that, the Raspberry Pi 3A+ and then versions of the Raspberry Pi 4. Upton confirms that units are "flowing into the Approved Reseller channel now, and this is already translating into better availability figures on rpilocator."
[...] Commercial and industrial sales will be actively managed, with commercial / industrial customers set to "receive the units they need". Changes have also been made to ensure that "inventory-building behaviour which would otherwise prolong the shortage for everybody else can't take place."
(Score: 2) by Sjolfr on Wednesday December 14, @01:58AM (4 children)
Oh pooooh.
A Pi4 4gb might do ... but the 8gb is what I want. I suppose we'll continue to see $200+ prices on it through 2023.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Wednesday December 14, @07:40AM (2 children)
This is good news, for the most part. The Zero 2 W will also still be hard to get a hold of for now.
I really hope they can pick their momentum back up. That's one of the main things that Raspberry Pi had going for it. The lack of availability and, especially the scalping, put a damper on all that. They also have problems due to microsofters having gotten onto the board of directors. It's not clever business to bring your most antagonistic and hostile competitor into the board room let alone give them a voice in the running of things. Aside from momentum, the other thing that Raspberry Pi has going for it is the money and staff that it pours into general education [bbc.co.uk], and that is the main goal of the Raspberry Pi after all and not coincidentally what m$ has the most interest in stopping. The education and outreach is dependent on high availability and low cost, so if the additional units can help out with that, their main goal might still be viable. It was really only Gen X and the first part of the Millenial generation which had relatively good access to general-purpose computers on which they could learn. Those that have come afterwards have not. For all the talk about digital natives, flicking thumbs at an addictive "app" is not using the computer, rather the opposite. For all the addiction game playing, few to none have actually written even a script, let alone an actual program. And making that possible is the main goal of the Raspberry PI and the same reason m$ has to fight it to the death.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday December 14, @11:01AM (1 child)
The Zero 2 W is _the_ ticket at the moment in Pi land as far as I am concerned. It's lacking in RAM but otherwise very capable. It runs (well, unlike the original Zero) as a Kodi video player with just passive cooling. If you take a little trouble in the configuration it can draw sub 100 mA while serving WiFi based web services (unlike the Pi4) and, it's oh so small, and only $15, $21 with a killer heat sink.
For lighter weight applications the Pico W is a better choice, but if you don't mind the boot up time and just want to install a LAMP stack or similar, the Zero 2 W is pretty crazy capable. Just go easy on the RAM.
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday December 14, @04:50PM
The RAM situation is bad. It's theoretically capable of addressing 1 GB, but it's stuck at 512 MB because "1GB LPDDR2 monodie are not available, and producing a SiP with two stacked SDRAM dice would be very challenging". I know LibreELEC 10+ permanently drops support [libreelec.tv] for the original Zero and Pi1 in part due to having less than 1 GB.
2 GB in the form factor (e.g. a Pi Zero 3 in a few years) should end the conversation about needing more RAM for many applications. There should be almost no benefit to Kodi/LibreELEC from adding more than 2 GB. Radxa put up to 4 GB in their Zero knockoff.
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(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday December 14, @04:00PM
Unless you're doing memory intensive things, like maybe hosting a website or something more complex. The 4GB RAM version is pretty good. The last time I tried using a RaspberryPi as a Desktop, was with a Pi4 4GB and it just runs too slow. Not an issue with not enough RAM, an issue with the thing just feels sluggish. Maybe an 8GB version would be nice, if you loaded the whole thing into RAM like with Puppy Linux. The reason why Puppy Linux runs so nice is that it's living in your RAM. Sure it may take a little extra boot time, but I am glad to trade that for a snappy desktop experience. I've not tried TinyCore or Puppy Linux on RPi, but their user experience isn't the best. My ideal is to get my wife happy with a RaspberryPi install, but for that to happen, it must be snappy and user friendly. Then again, maybe I'll give TinyCore or Puppy Linux another go. Unfortunately, running things like Netflix/Disney/Amazon Prime are probably going to be an issue.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"