Raspberry PI 3 goes on sale in Australia

Huge demand for the wireless version of the tiny Raspberry PI computer, which comes with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

The new Pi 3 model B

A new wireless version of the tiny Raspberry PI computer went on sale in Australia last night and local stocks were sold out in two hours.

The new Pi 3 model B adds built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity to the previous Pi 2 model, and has a faster processor. You need a new charger for the processor to operate correctly.

But Raspberry Pi Foundation says you get improved power management and the tiny computer can operate more powerful connected USB devices.

The foundation says the new 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU offers 10 times the performance of the processor on the original Pi. Pi 2 used a slower 900Mhz processor.

The new Raspberry Pi retains many features of the previous model: 4 USB 2.0 port, HDMI for connecting to an HD display, and a microUSB connector for power.

There’s also a camera port for connecting the Raspberry Pi camera and display port for the Raspberry Pi touch screen display.

In Australia the Pi can be bought for $56 online from au.element14.com and from authorised resellers such as littlebirdelectronics.com.a.

Yesterday was four years to the day since the original Pi shipped, on leap day 2012. The Raspberry Pi foundation and its partners have since sold 8 million units including 3 million of Raspberry Pi 2.

Significantly, the more powerful Pi can operate a version of Windows 10 for the internet of Things called Windows 10 IoT Core, as well as several Linux based operating systems.

The Pi has proved a popular tool for teaching children computing programming in schools and comes with the Scratch and Python coding languages.

Applications suited to the new Pi include full body scanning for producing a life-size 3D model, powering security systems, and temperature and humidity monitoring in weather stations.