element14 launches Raspberry Pi 3

29 February 2016 – element14, the market leading manufacturer and distributor of the Raspberry Pi are today announcing the launch of the new Raspberry Pi 3 Model B.  The new generation board is faster and more powerful than ever before and comes with built-in Wireless and Bluetooth connectivity.  This new board adds to element14’s broad product portfolio which includes a world class ecosystem of accessories such as the recently launched Raspberry Pi Touchscreen Display.

The new Raspberry Pi 3 is available to buy today from element14, for a price of USD35 and is built on a new QUAD Core Broadcom BCM2837 64bit ARMv8 processor (running an ARMv7 operating system) at 1.20GHz, a significant increase from 900MHz on the Raspberry Pi 2. It has improved power management and an upgraded switched power source up to 2.5 Amps to support more powerful external USB devices.

With support for Bluetooth Low Energy and Wireless LAN, the Raspberry Pi 3 can support  new and exciting application areas ‘out of the box’, such as IoT connectivity, streaming to Bluetooth headphones or speakers, Wi-Fi gateways and home cloud storage.  

Claire Doyle, Global Head of Raspberry Pi at element14, comments:

“Today, as we celebrate the 4^th birthday of Raspberry Pi, we reach another major milestone on the Pi journey with the launch of an even faster, technically advanced board for an amazing price of USD35. The new Raspberry Pi 3 Model B offers a higher level of performance than any of other Raspberry Pi board on the market.

“We are very excited, as the leading manufacturer and distributer of the Raspberry Pi, to launch this product and to get it into the hands of customers worldwide.  Supported by our growing accessory portfolio, the new Raspberry Pi3 allows customers to develop specific applications and build new projects – and we can’t wait to see what customers will do with it!”

To further extend element14’s extensive ecosystem and enable users to get even more out of their new Raspberry Pi 3, element14 today is also launching three new accessories:

• The new 16GB NOOBS Micro SD card featuring all of the software users need to get started quickly and easily
• A unique 2.5A Raspberry Pi power supply which will enable users to power their Pi and ‘add-on’ boards all from one power source – maximising the benefits of the Pi3’s improved power management capabilities
• A new Raspberry Pi 3 case

Speaking at the London event this morning, Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi Trading, said:

“Four years ago today, we launched the first Raspberry Pi with our friends at Premier Farnell. Today we’re launching Raspberry Pi 3: it’s still $35 and it’s still the size of your credit card, but now it comes with on-board wireless LAN and Bluetooth, 50% more processing power, and a 64-bit quadcore processor. The new Raspberry Pi opens up even more possibilities for IoT and embedded projects; we hope you like it as much as we do.”

Billy Anders, director of program management for Windows IoT added:

“We are excited to deliver the power of Windows 10 on the new Raspberry Pi 3 board.  We continue to improve our platform enabling more and more Raspberry Pi capabilities on Windows 10 IoT Core.”