Originally created for education, but due to its great power and versatility, it was quickly adopted by hobbyists. The Raspberry Pi, in its various variants, has been a bestseller selling millions of units. Theoretically, this year we should have known something about the Raspberry Pi 5
Eben Upton, CEO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, in July 2021 indicated in an interview that for this year we would see the Raspberry Pi 4 Model A and we would have data from the Raspberry Pi 5. There are just over two months left until the end of the year and we will never know. The truth is that everything has an explanation.
No news from the Raspberry Pi 5
To put us in context, the Launch of the Raspberry Pi 4 in 2019 with 1GB, 2GB and 4GB RAM versions, arriving soon after the 8GB version. The problem is that in 2020 the COVID-19 arrived and the world was paralyzed by this pandemic. It was a bad period, especially for the computer industry, which still drags the consequences of this period.
Currently, if we go to Amazon, we will see the Raspberry Pi 4 4 GB oscillating around 200 dollars and the 8GB model is out of stock. To give us an idea, when the Raspberry Pi 4 8 GB was launched, it had a price tag of around 100 dollars. Because of these prices, it has become a product without interest, since you can buy a Mini PC for less and equal or more powerful.
Due to the shortage of chips, which has not yet been corrected, the prices of everything have increased. Also, the price of Raspberry Pi has increased due to their low stock. The cost of manufacturing a chip or PCB has tripled, and transportation costs have skyrocketed.
It is possible that the increase in costs generates a delay in the launch of the Raspberry Pi 5. The truth is that we don’t know much more, since the company has not given more details about it.
What would this new system look like?
Upton in that July 2021 interview was pretty vague about it, although he gave some data. I comment that the Raspberry Pi 5 would have a more powerful processor than the Raspberry Pi 4, which is more than logical and expected. I am also talking about improvements in terms of connectivity, with improved USB ports and also an improvement in WiFi. I also point out that the RP5 would have more than 8 GB of RAM, which suggests that it could have 16 GB of RAM.
Most likely the Raspberry Pi 5 Specifications looks like this:
- ARM Cortex-A76 processor quad core running at 2 GHz and Adreno graphics
- 4 GB, 8 GB and 1 GB versions6GB LPDDR5 RAM
- support WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.1
- Port 2.5G ethernet
- four ports USB-A 3.0 and at least one port USB-C 3.2
- two ports hdmi (we don’t know if micro HDMI or full size)
- slot for microSD cards
- 40-pin GPIO
All of this data is just speculation based on what little Upton pointed out in his interview. But these are great features that could, among other things, be able to run Windows 10, for example.
