How big of a phenomenon is the Raspberry Pi? The charity organization behind the tiny, low-cost computer announced this morning that over 5 million Pis have now been sold. The original Pi went on sale about three years ago next week, so 5 million is a pretty huge milestone to hit in that short period of time. The organization boasts that this figure appears to make it “the biggest selling UK computer manufacturer ever,” though you wouldn’t be wrong to take issue with its comparison: Pi is selling $20 to $35 computers – not machines that you’re going to use for serious productivity for a few years.
Impressive, and well-deserved.
“not machines that you’re going to use for serious productivity for a few years”
Yeah : file server, XBMC, robotics, domotics, hobbytronics, emulation, …
I wonder if we have the same conception of “seriousness” :/
This stuff can even runs full desktop OSes, even more with the RPi2 upgrade (quad-core). Add an extension card (RTC, IO, Wifi, BT) like the X100-X300 and voil~A .
Edited 2015-02-18 07:53 UTC
Would you use this as your main computer? Nobody would. They use a serious computer that costs a little bit more than $35.
It isn’t unheard of.
I do know 2 people who do use a raspberry pi as there main computer but they have family who set it up for them as upgrades for rather ageing PCs
Well deserve indeed. Well done.
I hope those people are dirt poor. My parents complain about the speed of their 3Ghz Core2’s.
I bet that they have an HDD and low RAM, replace their HDD with a SSD and they won’t complain anymore..
We used to use 486 computers that was far less powerful for “serious” stuff (business, database, cgi, …)
The main problem, EVERYTIME, is the lack of software.
Provide the Raspberry Pi with a good set of device drivers to fetch your digital camera’s pictures and print them, and you get your “seriousness”.
Thin clients are less powerful than the Raspberry Pi, yet allows “serious” things.
I’m considering it myself, namely for the low power usage.
I’ve already converted my server from an old Desktop with a 250W power supply (1997 era) to a Pi+RouterBoard+Wandboard Quad.
I’m considering using a Pi or similar for a laptop. It’s more than powerful enough.
Technically, yes an rpi runs that stuff, bet’s be honest here.. Unless your needs are absolutely minimal, you have low expectations, and aren’t bother by slowness/lag, it doesn’t run a file server, xbmc, or emulation all that well. It doesn’t even handle “modern” webpages well. It may be a difference story with the rpi2 benefiting from more cpu & ram, but the rpi? It’s ok for a hobbyist or as a toy to mess with but that’s about it. I wish I could think of something useful for mine so I could blow the dust off it and put it to use.
The thing’s going into space – serious? oh yeah.
Haha, that phrasing was carefully made to exclude Sinclair (whom they yet have to outsell) that did manufacture their computers in the UK, but it was done by Timex which is not a UK company…
A lot of the early Pi’s were also not made in the UK and using a subcontractor should make no difference, because the Pi is also made by a subcontractor. From what I can see, Sony manufactured a lot of the UK made Pi’s in Wales, so again, Sony isn’t a British company so your argument doesn’t work.
I know they were close to beating Sinclair recently, isn’t it possible they just “did”?
No, Sinclair sold 5M of the Spectrum alone. Add the >1.5M of ZX81 and the 0.25M of ZX80 and Sinclair QL and they still have a bit to go.
Some Pis are manufactured by RS, which is a UK manufacturer, so the claim exactly as stated could still be true (if applied to them).
Why would you add zx81 and 80? They are completely incompatible computers with only a partially similar BASIC. The Intel Mac is closer to being a PC than the ZX8x being a Speccy.
And the Pi’s built in the UK are manufactured by Sony – which is also not a UK company.
The newspaper website I saw it on (The Telegraph I think) reported it as the best selling British computer ever, which makes more sense, as it has just outsold the Sinclair.
Is it any wonder Nadella is suddenly throwing Windows at this platform, for free? That’s 5,000,000 developers using “cancerous” software (as Gates called open source software).
Edited 2015-02-18 13:27 UTC
When his softwares was OEM flavored cancerous, that was not a problem for him. I bet that the new FREE flavored cancerous software licensing scheme won’t be a problem either. He probably hope it goes viral.
While 5 million is amazing, what’s even more amazing is that the latest pi has already sold 10% of that number in less than a month. Of course, it’s pretty beefy for $35, with a quad core 1ghz arm cortex a7 and a gig of ram, hdmi, etc.