The Raspberry Pi Model A+

A few months ago we were lucky to get the scoop on a new Raspberry Pi a few days before it was officially announced. This model ended up being the Raspberry Pi Model B+, with improvements that included more USB ports, not-dumb mounting holes, more GPIOs, and a decent microSD card connector. Today, we’re proud to leak another revision to the Raspberry Pi ecosystem – the Raspberry Pi Model A+

There really aren’t many details for this new revision of the Raspi, but we can make some educated guesses. The new model features the same not-dumb mounting holes as the B+, 58mm wide by 49mm wide. All the ports are moved to two sides of the board, and the analog audio and video are combined into one 3.5mm jack. Like the normal Model A, this one doesn’t have Ethernet and only one USB port, but the improvements seen from the B to the B+ are still there: a good microSD card socket is on the back, and the 40-pin GPIO header replaces the old 26-pin header. There’s no word if the A+ will feature a RAM upgrade – when the Model B was ramping up production The Foundation decided to bump the RAM up to 512MB. This could happen with the A+, but we’re not holding our breath.

There’s no word when the A+ will be announced, or when it will start shipping. The educated guess would say tomorrow morning, with an analysis of how much power this thing consumes a week after it starts shipping.

57 thoughts on “The Raspberry Pi Model A+

    1. You’re right, it’s absolutely nothing like the Odroid-W, apart from being a small single board computer. In fact, it’s basically the RPi B+ with the end chopped off.

      Now, why does any of that make it “lame”? It’s better than the original RPi A, which makes it a positive thing. Or are you one of those people who can’t stand to see improvement in anything you’re not already obsessed with?

      1. it is because it has just 256MB RAM and the only improvements are the microSD, some more GPIOs and a smaller board. The Odroid-w has more RAM, ADCs, RTC and a charger circuit for an lipo. And so the A+ is still lame for mobile use

        1. we sent men to the moon and back with far less horsepower

          computer power is all relative to your application

          when you say a computer is “fast” or “lame” you are just showing your short-sighted attitude

          1. @MorMo: No, lame literally means disabled or hobbled, and if that’s the way you see the RPi then I suppose it’s the correct word. For me, it’s less work and less money than the Odroid W for the types of projects I’d use it for, so it’s not lame in my eyes. To each his own.

  1. I’m not sure I understand why the switch from SD to Micro SD is considered an upgrade. You can always use a micro SD card in an SD slot with a very cheap adapter. You can’t easily go the other way so the regular SD slot is actually more functional.

      1. While there are available options to use the half-size micro SD card adapter that flushes the SD card for the older models, the RPi org’s original comment to using regular sized SD cards is the price of the regular SD card vs the micro SD card (with the regular SD card being the cheaper one)

    1. Back when the B+ came out, it was a bit disappointing to find out that they changed over to a micro SD slot as I’m not about to go buy a set of micro SD cards after buying a set of standard size SD cards. Maybe in a way it’s a good thing for me as I already have three Raspberry Pi’s :)

      1. Wait you can still buy standard SD cards?
        All I’ve seen lately have been MicroSD cards that come with an SD adapter card. Not that I’m complaining since there are adapters to go from Micro to just about anything else.

          1. Additionally, many of the full size SD cards are using faster memory technology than the microSD cards. This is not universal, there are full size ones with the slower/cheaper technology, and there are micro ones with the faster technology. I think this is because the most common demand for the faster cards is for the HD cameras.

    1. I have 2 bones, too (and a bunch of pi’s). the bone has a PITA to deal with. latest kernel beyond 3.8 is unstable. everyone is getting crashes and no one knows why ;( this is on ubuntu or debian with robert’s latest updates. I’m not happy at all with the instability of the bone.

      1. I have been fighting for days to get wireless networking going on my Bone on 3.14. The TP-Link stick recommended by many crashes the kernel. I don’t get that on a ZD1211 based stick but I also can’t get the thing to work for the life of me. Yes, firmware is loaded, I’m using iw instead of iwconfig, etc. The 3.8 kernel worked OK for networking but had problematic USB. All this is compounded by TI’s proprietary SGX modules that only work with certain kernels. People who complained about the Pi’s graphics blob never owned a Bone, and now the Pi is moving way ahead here. It seems all the time I’ve spent with the Bone have been trying to get the Bone to work.

      1. I’ll get one because of the smaller size, but I guess most people will care about the reduced power draw. Even both A+ and B+ cost the same – if you don’t need the features the B+ adds, why waste more energy than necessary?

      2. The A+ does have a use. This is perfect for MAME cabinets/, as they don’t need to be networked. It is easy to hook up extra storage for it the form factor makes it a little less awkward I suppose.

  2. After getting my hands on a Odroid-W, I am not impressed with this updated Pi model. This is such a shame that the Odroid team are not able to source broadcom chip and had to discontinue it, it is so much smaller than the PI. Considering the Raspi foundation does not seem to want to really upgrade the Pi, they should at least make it considerably smaller.

    1. It is such a shame about the odroid-W, it mates so nicely with those tft displays and adds only the thickness of the pcb to the whole thing, I was meaning to grab a few more to do some gameboy classic mods but hearing about their discontinuation really bummed me out. These would work but those gpio headers would need to come out and damn if I don’t feel like desoldering 40 headers.

    2. > This is such a shame that the Odroid team are not able to source broadcom chip

      The Odroid team cannot source the Broadcom chips because Broadcom *refused* to supply them to Odroid. I wonder if the RasPI team (some of them working at Broadcom) are behind this shameful move.

  3. they STILL don’t get it. all the ports are NOT on one edge of the pcb!

    think about how to embed this inside a box. ideally, you’d have the user ports exit from the rear of the box (hdmi and usb being the 2 important ones). did they do it this time? no, of course not. from the same team that ‘forgot’ to put mounting holes on the first 2 or 3 revs of the pi design (sigh…)

    until they put all the connectors on one side and make it box friendly, they still have not done anything worthwhile for EMBEDDING this inside other systems.

    better yet would be an edge connector that breaks out to user ports, so that I can remove the board from my chassis and not have to mess with port holes or unhooking a bunch of separate wires and cables.

    maybe someone will ‘get’ this concept, but the pi people seem to miss it every single time! what is wrong with them?? sheesh. so frustrating to see his wart in the design time after time after time.

    1. because it’s not an EMBEDDED computer. Its a small form factor computer, meant for teaching and learning. Not for creating the next generation gigawhatsit. Although it can be used for other purposes, it wasn’t the real intent.

      and besides..I guess you missed the whole compute module launch, huh?

      really hate that 2 years later, people are still babbling and weeping over shit that out of their control.

    1. Product range wise the Arduino has developed loads, in terms or core components being used, speed, etc. – there are at least large and obvious changes made.

      The raspberry pi is still using the same components on a re-organised board, there is essentially no progress at all, (if progress means more features added, more utility added, speed memory etc, anything that you could write on an easy to read list.

      There is no real point in rubbishing the product though.
      it either fits your specs, or you use Odroid (if you can get it) Olimex A10 or A20, or a banana pi, or any other small form factor board.

      You said earlier about designing your own.

      If Olimex can manage to develop a fully open source (and hand solder-able if you want to make it yourself) board, provide all the CAD drawings, and create images (unlike the Pi foundation that waited for community to start building images). then it does make me think that the Pi people, with their large company, distribution paths, off and on shore production facilities, chains of distribution, vendor links, free publicity (like here) could (and probably should) do better!

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