After many months of speculation and waiting, the new Raspberry Pi 5 It already has a release date. It will arrive at the end of October and, with complete certainty, will receive many requests. We are going to tell you what its specifications are, such as network connections, as well as launch details. It is a device widely used to carry out projects, such as home automation.
We are also going to reflect on whether or not it is really worth buying the Raspberry Pi 5 or, on the contrary, it is better to buy a mini computer. They are two options that you will always have on the table and, in the end, it will also depend on what use you are going to give to this type of device.
Raspberry Pi 5
The previous model, which we can say has been the main one in recent years, was presented in June 2019. Therefore, a little more than 4 years have passed since then. There have been continuous delays, mainly due to the shortage of some components due to the pandemic, but they have finally announced the launch of Raspberry Pi 5 and it will be at the end of October.
According to the manufacturers, if we compare Raspberry Pi 5 with its previous version, it has between two and three times greater CPU and GPU performance. It also has double the memory and bandwidth. These are some important improvements that have been introduced and that we will be able to take advantage of with this new version.
If we focus on the most specific specifications, it has a Arm Cortex-A76 processor 64-bit quad-core 2.4 GHz. It has a VideoCore VII GPU, which is compatible with OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan 1.2. In addition, it has dual 4Kp60 HDMI display output and 4Kp60 HEVC decoder.
Regarding the connections, something basic is that it has Dual band Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0port Gigabit Ethernet with PoE+ support, two USB 3.0 ports and two other USB 2.0 ports.
Although it improves in terms of processor or GPU, for example, it maintains similar specifications in terms of connections and we compare it with Raspberry Pi 4. It has the basics that we might need for a device of this type.
It will be available in two versions. One of them is going to be 4GBwith a price of 60 dollars (a little less than €60) and the second is 8GB, priced at $80. It is an improvement over the previous version, since in that case the versions were 1, 2 and 4 GB.
Is it worth buying a mini PC?
You may be thinking about buying a computer with these characteristics to carry out projects or even have it as a basic computer and be able to carry out some actions in your daily life. However, you will have the option of purchasing many mini computers that have pretty good features.
As you have seen, you can buy a Raspberry Pi 5 from just under €60 and, in the 8 GB version, for just under €80. However, the features are basic and, at least in order to be able to use it as a home computer, for your daily life, they could fall short.
This is where the option of buying a mini computer. You can find quite interesting options for just over €100. Therefore, if you really want a computer that allows you to even use it as the main computer at home and that takes up little space, purchasing a mini PC can be a good idea. An example is this BlackView MP60, which has 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB of SSD storage, Intel Celeron N5095 processor, dual-band Wi-Fi or Gigabit port.
In short, Raspberry Pi 5 is now a reality and will be available in a few weeks. It can be a good option if you were looking for a device of this type for your projects, but you also have the alternative of buying a mini PC, which will have improved features. There are other alternatives to Raspberry Pi to build a mini computer.
