14 DAY TRIAL // Approximately half a year after its launch, during which time every single copy was sold, the $5 computer, Raspberry Pi Zero, makes a comeback with a built-in camera connector.
Yes, you're reading it right, Raspberry Pi Founder founder Eben Upton has just emailed everyone subscribed to the project's marketing channels that a new version of the tiny Raspberry Pi Zero single-board computer (SBC) is now available with what appears to be the most requested "missing" feature, a camera connector.
"Happily, Mike was able to take advantage of the resulting production hiatus to add the most frequently demanded 'missing' feature to Zero: a camera connector. Through dumb luck, the same fine-pitch FPC connector that we use on the Compute Module Development Kit just fits onto the right-hand side of the board," reads today's announcement.
A custom six-inch adapter cable is also available
To spice things up, the Raspberry Pi Foundation is also offering users a custom six-inch adapter cable, which has been engineered to convert the fine-pitch connector format to the rougher pitch of the camera board. The new Raspberry Pi Zero version will be available for purchase in the US from Adafruit and Micro Center, and in Europe from Pimoroni and The Pi Hut.
Raspberry Pi Foundation says that there will be about 30,000 new Raspberry Pi Zero units available today via the online stores mentioned above, and thousands of more units are in the making each day. The Raspberry Pi Zero computer comes with the same CPU as first-generation Raspberry Pi, but up-clocked to 1GHz, which means that it's up to 40% faster.
Raspberry Pi Zero also ships with 512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM, a micro-SD card slot, a mini-HDMI port supporting up to 1080p at 60FPS video output, two micro-USB ports, one for that and one for power, as well as an unpopulated 40-pin GPIO header featuring the same pinout as the Raspberry Pi Model A+/B+/2B.
