back to article Raspberry Pi production rate rising to a million a month

Raspberry Pi boss Eben Upton says the micro manufacturer's ovens will crank out a million units in July, after years of supply issues restraining sales. In a newsletter article spotted by Tom's Hardware, Upton said the fruiterer shipped 800,000 units in Q1 of 2023 – its worst result since 2015 and a number that buyers usually …

  1. simonlb Silver badge
    Stop

    A Bit Late Now

    I had an 8Gb Pi4 B on back order since 20th December 2021 with a most recent delivery date of mid January next year, but by now have completely lost all interest in the project I was going to use it for and have cancelled my order. Whether the delay is actually down to availability of the 8Gb model or me just being bumped down the list by the supplier as I was ordering only one I don't know, but I doubt I'll be looking at the Pi again in the future as the are a whole lot of newer alternatives out there now that are both cheaper and easier to get hold of.

    1. trevorde Silver badge

      Re: A Bit Late Now

      A lot of other SBCs are cheaper and more powerful but none have the software support and the community which the RPi has

      1. Pete 2 Silver badge

        Re: A Bit Late Now

        > none have the software support and the community which the RPi has

        And luckily for the RPi people none of the other hobby-targetting SBC manufacturers tumbled that the hardware is nothing without usable software.

        Many SBCs have offered better features, faster speeds and lower prices than Pi's since well before COVID. However their software often consisted of an out-of-date o/s and precious little ability to access the I/o without complex and badly documented configuration commands.

        Though if all that people want is a media player, pi-hole or other purely software solution then the Pi people may well find that those potential customers have already found other boards that satisfy their needs.

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: A Bit Late Now

          >And luckily for the RPi people none of the other hobby-targetting SBC manufacturers tumbled that the hardware is nothing without usable software.

          Hardware is ironically cheap to develop.

          There are a lots of SOCs that come with an example devkit board layout. There are lots of cheap low volume PCB makers. Software engineers, documentation, software testers etc are comparatively expensive

        2. Zola

          Re: A Bit Late Now

          > Though if all that people want is a media player, pi-hole or other purely software solution then the Pi people may well find that those potential customers have already found other boards that satisfy their needs.

          Pretty sure that's not really the target market for the RPi people - sales to such customers are a nice little earner, yes, but those customers are not the Foundations focus.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: A Bit Late Now

            "...sales to such customers ... are not the Foundations focus."

            Everybody pretends this company walks on water, I don't.

            You're absolutely correct about such customers and it was such customers that put them on the menu and kept them on it. Screw Upton and his company. It's sad that he's putting on his PR hat and pretending that he can raise the prices without the competition appearing on the menu to steal his lunch. What happen to that IPO Upton? Is that pesky war still getting in the way? RPI hardware is phantomware at worst, at best it's BTO. Wake up people, it's a business-to-business company and anything he has to say to the "public" is complete B.S. Buy hey, queue up and pretend you're going to get that hardware, it can only help Upton's IPO (but you still be empty handed).

            1. GreyWolf

              WRONG WRONG WRONG

              "Wake up people, it's a business-to-business company"

              Wake up yourself. It's NOT a commercial company; it is a Foundation.

              The clue is in the name.

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: WRONG WRONG WRONG

                > Wake up yourself. It's NOT a commercial company; it is a Foundation. The clue is in the name.

                It very much is a commercial company, and a very profitable one at that, and the clue is in the name - Raspberry Pi Ltd - which is a separate business entity to the charitable Raspberry Pi Foundation.

      2. Humpty McNumpty

        Re: A Bit Late Now

        Are there tho', cheaper yes, better features in a cherry picked aspect - lots, better and cheaper, which ones are those?

        1. prandeamus

          Re: A Bit Late Now

          Anecdotally, I see plenty of ads for /better/ Raspberry PI class SBCs - maybe with more memory or zappier processors or whatever - at higher prices. Usually promoted as "Pi killers". I'm sure there's a market for such things. They are always 20-50 more expensive that RPI list prices, and that's fair enough. However, I /never/ see ads for /cheaper/ PI equivalents, by which I mean low cost SBCs capable of running some sort of lightweight *nix distribution, something like the 2012 vintage PIs. These days, of course, microcontrollers based on ARM or RISCV can be found on boards with wifi or bluetooth or USB but there still seems to be a gap. Is there a via market segment for "more than a microcontroller but less that a PI 3 B", and where is it?" (Maybe just not profitable enough)

          1. prandeamus

            Re: A Bit Late Now

            I suppose, on reflection, the market segment for "more than a microcontroller and less than a PI 3 B" is covered by the Pi Zero and Zero W models. Are there any realistic competitors for the price point? Orange Pi Zero is the best I could find, and it's not by any means a slam-dunk choice. (CPU a bit faster, includes ethernet when Pi Zero doesn't, no video)

            1. doublelayer Silver badge

              Re: A Bit Late Now

              There are several products that aim for that part of the market. This post compares several good options for performance and power usage, although it didn't include everything and has not been updated. In many cases, it comes down to your specific requirements. Many projects will absolutely need something that not every other project does, and so some of these boards will leave something out that makes them unsuitable, or in some cases include something that makes it worse such as adding on other peripherals which increase the size of the unit for space-constrained projects.

              1. prandeamus

                Re: A Bit Late Now

                A good place to start! Many thanks.

            2. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: A Bit Late Now

              Not really. I build a lot of specialist tools that fit in this category and while the alternatives are technically higher spec, they aren't as practical.

              A Pi Zero 2W, I can run in a custom made handheld device (not retro gaming) for wifi and network related stuff...make of that what you will...with a small oled and some soldered in dongles (ethernet, extra wifi radio, serial adapter) for days...alternatives, with all the extra guff you get, like a beefy GPU you can't switch off, I might get a few hours.

              It really depends on your use case though, if you absolutely have to have the processing power in your hands, then the Pi Zero 2W can be a bit weak, but if you're using it to gather data and offload it somewhere else to be processed, the Pi Zero 2W is great.

              I don't really see something like a Pi Zero as a computer itself, I see it as a conduit through which I can send instructions / results from a much more power machine.

              One use case I have is wifi surveys. I have my handheld Pi device (custom 3D printed case to house it, the dongles and a large battery), which is lightweight (probably about 200-300g), durable and has battery power for days that I can walk around with easily...and a beefy 24 core 64GB RAM, 1U server (that doesn't have to be in the same physical location as me, but can be if I need it to be) that crunches all the PCAP data, generates reports etc...it also provides an API that the hand held can grab useful data from that can be displayed on the 128x64 oled display while I walk around.

              With the flick of a switch, it turns into a handheld, simple, network auditing tool...runs a ping sweep on the discovered subnet, grabs banners, mac addresses, broadcast traffic etc (obviously with permission from the client)...bundles it all up and sends it back to the server to be transformed into a sort of summary that is pinged to my phone with pushbullet as a PDF. The idea behind this device is that I can perform a simple scan to get a decent idea of a potential clients network, so when I rock up for the preliminary meeting to discuss my services, I can have a pretty good idea of their setup within about 2-3 minutes and give them a more accurate idea on ballpark figures etc...also, nothing shows people you know what you're doing like custom gear they've never seen that does a task in a short space of time that would take their existing network guys ages to perform.

              By far the coolest feature though, is the custom app I have on my phone that gives me a UI from the server, from there, over a reverse tunnel that the handheld sets up, I can perform a whole shit load of stuff...I can do a vulnerability scan using Nessus (and various other tools), I can deploy simple services to the handheld if I need them in an emergency such as DNS, DHCP, a basic VPN server, wifi hotspot, remote shell etc etc...whatever I need to keep a network going in the event I need to remove a router or something to troubleshoot it.

              It's endless really, I add to it all the time.

            3. In total, your posts have been upvoted 1337 times

              Re: A Bit Late Now

              I'm probably not best placed to comment as I have about half a dozen Pi4s deployed to do various tasks plus a few Pi3's still in service (you can't beat free software support!).

              But if you need a reliable performer with excellent up to date Linux support and equivalent compute power to an original Pi, then don't overlook recent routers. In the UK, BT HomeHub 5 type A or the brand engineered Plusnet equivalent have prebuilt OpenWRT images freely available plus up to date binaries for thousands of packages in their repo. They're effectively e-waste now and therefore free or very low priced (like £5 on Ebay) and the package includes mains PSU, 5 x GigE ports and 2.4 and 5GHz Wifi. I/O is via USB however unless you're handy with a soldering iron (in which case there are about 12 digital I/Os available). An extra £2 spent on an Arduino Nano to mop up any rI/O bound tasks fixes that problem though. The main CPU is a dual core Intel/Lantiq MIPS @ 200MHz with 128MB of RAM.

              1. Hee Hee

                Re: A Bit Late Now

                I'd follow your blog if you had one, I like your pragmatism..

          2. fromxyzzy

            Re: A Bit Late Now

            There are things like the Teensy, the Daisy Seed and other thru-hole DIP chip-size ARM SBCs, which are complete computers with specs between microcontroller but less than a Pi 3 B. They're generally about the equivalent of a 25~ year old PC and could certainly run a lightweight *nix. The somewhat maligned Pine64 company just released a set of RISC-V SBCs in a similar form (naturally without any drivers or OS, as is their usual m.o. but the community is working on a bootable linux).

            They tend to be used as bare-metal though, the Teensy and Daisy are very popular in audio tools and musical instrument projects and have very good libraries. They're also slightly more expensive than an RPi Zero W and suffered from similar supply chain issues for as long as RPi has.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: A Bit Late Now

              The Teensy etc are extremely niche...they use too much power to be an interesting drop in for a micro controller, because of the added latency etc and not powerful enough to perform the lifting required for useful stuff...not to mention the form factor after you've added a bunch of HATs, boards and other miscellaneous shit to make it useful...it'd be bigger than a Pi Zero...which has a lot of the stuff you'd want already on board thus ultimately making it the more compact solution or leaving more room for battery space.

              I find that the power efficiency of something is often offset by the space that it takes up as a complete solution.

              Yes, a Pi Zero uses more power, but you waste less space, so you can make up for that extra power draw by utilising space for batteries...the Teensy on the other hand, uses much less power, but when you have all your add-in boards factored in, it takes up more space. Which means less batteries and therefore, probably similar endurance to a Pi...at that point, you might as well just use a Pi.

              This completely goes out of the window for stationary projects that plug straight into a power source, but again...at that point, if it's not going to be portable, why would you bother going with an insanely compact design and limit the performance? You wouldn't...you get a Pi 4 or a mini PC...because the size doesn't really matter anymore.

              So yeah, these weird hybrid micro-controller things occupy a space that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

              I can't think of many use cases that require a little more than a micro controller but a bit less than a Pi Zero...save for some bizarro niche stuff...which can also be done on either just a micro controller or a Pi Zero...situations where they would be the optimal choice, but not the only choice.

              It's a bit like having three sizes of packets of crisps. A small one, a big one and medium one. The medium one gives you exactly what you need to scratch the itch, the small one not enough, and the big one just a bit too much...but in the absence of the medium bag, you can just have two small bags, or just eat most of the large bag and not be concerned about the extra crisps (bin them, ignore them, save them)...at the end of the day, you're still getting your crisps. Optimal serving size or not. They taste the same, they crunch the same...you just might find that the circumstances around the size of bag you picked might lead to an additional decision you have to make to account for being sub-optimal. In most cases, getting the bigger bag will be the better choice, if not optimal, because you'll always have extra crisps for later if you need them.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: A Bit Late Now

        Personally, I get through a lot of Raspberry Pis...I build testing tools for labs, portable devices for specific tasks etc etc and they are great because I know what I'm getting, the board is extremely well documented and all the pinouts are well known, it's rare to get a DoA and so on.

        However, for some jobs I find the Raspberry Pi quite limiting...for example, if I want a second ethernet socket...more radios...better storage and so on.

        The main thing lacking though is alternate, safe, methods to power the Pi. I think the single biggest change they could make, would be to put a small two pin JST connector for power on the board somewhere. It would make the Pi so much more flexible and it would cost pennies...these exist on nearly every, interesting, competitor board and it opens the door to some interesting use cases that just aren't wise with the Pi...like powering via GPIO...that is insanely dodgy, but a lot add-in boards do it which is mental...I've fried more boards powered via GPIO than any other way.

        I think the solution is a stripped back "industrial" Pi...that comes with two radios, two ethernet jacks, no HDMI, no audio and a low profile GPIO socket (something that can be plugged into at 90 degrees with a thin(ish) ribbon like cable that breaks out into a full size GPIO that can be routed. Not a fragile plastic ZIF ribbon, something more like a low profile IDE-ish cable.

        Yeah that would be nice.

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          Re: A Bit Late Now

          I think you've reached the point where you want specific peripherals for your use case and everybody has a different set they want. If you're including ethernet ports, then I'll take a few USB ports but set lower so the ethernet jacks are now the thickest part, but you didn't say whether you wanted any, so that might break things for your use case if I were to build it.

          As such, you probably want to use the compute modules which give you all the benefits of the SoC and connect to whatever board has the socket for it, then design that board to have the specific set of connections you want. It's not as cheap as if the company made a board that has precisely the set of stuff you want to use, but given the number of options, they're unlikely to do so.

    2. jdh2828

      Re: A Bit Late Now

      They've been prioritising commercial customers rather than hobbyists, which seems a betrayal to me.

      1. John Robson Silver badge

        Re: A Bit Late Now

        Did you listen to the interview Eben had with Jeff?

      2. Pete 2 Silver badge

        Re: A Bit Late Now

        Yes. Much of their success is built upon hobbyist code.

        Also while it is worthy to protect the jobs of those whose businesses rely on Pi's. Many retailers businesses rely on Pi's, too. Yet they got hung out to dry when supplies ran out.

        1. werdsmith Silver badge

          Re: A Bit Late Now

          They were between a rock and a hard place and had to make tough decisions. Glad I didn't have to decide.

          It was never going to be possible to keep everyone happy so they went for the least damaging option.

          1. iron

            Re: A Bit Late Now

            Upsetting the people who promoted them is not the least damaging option.

            1. werdsmith Silver badge

              Re: A Bit Late Now

              I was one "who promoted them" but I do understand that it's not all about me.

              I can live for a while with having to work really hard to find a fairly priced device, those folk who might lose their jobs or their businesses probably find themselves a bit more inconvenienced than those who can't buy a new toy.

            2. doublelayer Silver badge

              Re: A Bit Late Now

              In your opinion, what would have been the least damaging group to upset? Is it just whichever group you personally have the least contact with? I understand that nobody's happy with the lack of supply, but a lot of complaints about the situation appear to imply that there was some easy answer that they just didn't take, and so far I have no idea what you or anyone else think that was. I have some idea of what it wasn't, but that's not the same.

              1. werdsmith Silver badge

                Re: A Bit Late Now

                This has already been answered. The people who are going suffer damage to their businesses and therefore the livelihoods of people who work in these businesses.

                Probably more important than wanting a new toy.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: A Bit Late Now

            > they went for the least damaging option.

            And least damaging was protecting their bottom line, securing their financial future by prioritorising commercial users. That may have been the right choice, it probably was if chasing money is the name of the game, but it does feel like makers and home users were thrown under the bus in doing that.

            1. Glen 1

              Re: A Bit Late Now

              They could have easily 'chased the money' by floating the price. They didn't do that.

    3. mikejames

      Re: A Bit Late Now

      RPi's are OK but my goto SBC is a Beaglebone Black - more GPIO and PRUs for hard real-time control and comms.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: A Bit Late Now

        Thanks for letting us know.

        I've got a Ninja air fryer in my kitchen for serious chips.

        1. TimMaher Silver badge
          Flame

          Re: Ninja air fryer

          Software problems with those though.

          You select Roast, for instance, hit the timer button and the bastard reverts to Air Fry.

          It defaults to Air Fry all the time unless you spot it and override the selection.

          Icon because frying.

          1. werdsmith Silver badge

            Re: Ninja air fryer

            Fat fingers, you are getting a bit of rotation when you press. You soon get the knack.

        2. Fr. Ted Crilly Silver badge

          Re: A Bit Late Now

          Ba deeb!

    4. iron

      Re: A Bit Late Now

      RPI is dead. They have been unavailable to their core market for over 2 years and like many others I have cancelled my order.

      Long live OrangePI and other alternatives that have been available during these supposed difficult times for SBC suipply lines.

      Between lack of supply and employing a minion of the surveilance state I will not be interested in RPI again, nor will I recommend them to anyone.

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: A Bit Late Now

        It’s not all about you and your order. The suppliers are getting stock the last couple of weeks and selling out quickly. How is that ‘dead’?

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A Bit Late Now

      Phone up Raspberry Pi. Your delay is because of the restocking at the retailer. Raspberry Pi is prioritising industrial and Educational customers...I've had no problem getting hold of Raspberry Pis at all the last 2 years...maybe a month wait max if production was slow.

      If you intend to use it for professional / educational purposes, you won't have a problem getting one.

      If you intend to waste it on RetroArch-Plex-Mediastreaming-PiHole garbage then you will struggle to get one because unfortunately hobbyists aren't the priority right now.

      I build testing harnesses for labs and got a batch of 5x 8GB Pi4B's about 2 months ago. I also got a batch of 10x Pi Zero 2Ws at the advertised price...no worries...I'll be placing another order in about a months time and I imagine I'll have no issues then either.

      If you are intending on a trashy project that doesn't require the GPIO etc, why not take a look at the NanoPi R6S or R5S? Even the R4S is pretty damned good.

      https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=287

      https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=289

      I've used quite a few of these for pentesting harnesses and they're great. They don't have the same GPIO flexibility that the RPI has, but it still has a basic GPIO header...better GPU than the Pi as well.

      They can all run Armbian which is a very well supported OS (I actually prefer it to RPi OS in a lot of circumstances because it comes with some pretty interesting config tools and is pretty lean).

      https://www.armbian.com/

      They all have builds of OpenWRT as well and various other distros.

  2. hittitezombie

    When none of the UK resellers have any stock, and CPC advertising "More stock available week commencing 05/02/24", I'd just say "fuck off" and move onto another device.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge
      1. anothercynic Silver badge
        Pint

        Thanks for the great link, Dan!! That's brilliant Upvote and a beer from me!

      2. twellys

        Or you can go in person to the RPi shop in the centre of the universe* to get your mitts on RPi kit, including the 8Gb RPi4

        * RPi Universe**

        ** = Cambridge, Unicorn Kingdom

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Which is fine if you live there but not if it's >100m each way, a long way to drive, especially if you're not 100% confident they'd have stock. You can order from our resellers - who are either out of stock or only accepting orders from existing customers.

          Great.

          Just great.

          1. twellys

            Well, I make the trip down to Cambridge each week from Yorkshire (Wetherby way) 'coz I'm a grunt, sorry, contractor. That journey is around 150 miles.

            However I get your point of not knowing if there's stock, although you can telephone the shop before you go. Also there's the petrol/diesel/train fares/etc. to consider - Saying that though are there any museums (Computing Museum / Duxford / etc.) or other things in the Cambridge area as well? Just a thought, that's all.

        2. werdsmith Silver badge

          @twellys don't tell everyone.....

          1. Screepy

            Pi-hut have Pi 4 8GB 'starter kits' available right now, £104 - hdmi cable, power supply, case, SD card, and pi4 8GB.

            Not ideal as i know a lot of us would prefer just the board and then pick and choose what we want depending on our project of choice but at least it's something.

            I nabbed one as I'm going to be setting up BirdNet-pi in the garden :)

            https://github.com/mcguirepr89/BirdNET-Pi

    2. 897241021271418289475167044396734464892349863592355648549963125148587659264921474689457046465304467

      They're all over the shop on certain auction sites...

  3. Lucasjkr

    Will the Pi 4 finally be price competitive with an old Intel NUC?

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Will the old Intel NUC be price competitive in running costs with the possibly hypothetical Pi 4.

    2. werdsmith Silver badge

      Will my motorbike finally be price competitive with a Honda Civic?

      If you want an Intel NUC, buy an Intel NUC. If you want an ARM based low power consumption computer that can be built into a multitude of projects with a global support and maker community behind it, don't buy an Intel NUC.

    3. doublelayer Silver badge

      I don't understand this. I don't know what price you're getting for the NUC, but I'm guessing that if it's comparable to the Pi, it's really very old and maybe there's something wrong with it. You're surely not looking at the highest Pi price on Amazon to determine the cost of that? I know they're frequently hard to get, but you know what the prices are and, when it's come up before, people have found stocks in several countries by looking around hard enough. You will find anybody selling something for a ridiculous amount, but that doesn't make that the market price.

  4. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

    "the fruiterer shipped 800,000 units ... a number that buyers usually acquire in a single month."

    That works out at 9.6 million a year. So will 12 million a year be enough to fulfil demand and end back order shortages?

    1. Crypto Monad Silver badge

      That was 800,000 in a *quarter*. That's only 3.2 million per year.

      1. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge

        Yes, but that's the "number that buyers usually acquire in a single month" - 800K x 12 = 9.6 million a year.

  5. Contrex

    "Upton told Geerling that Raspberry Pi users tend to horde their machines, keeping several in the back cabinet for a rainy day."

    I have accumulated quite a collection of Pis, but I have not tried to form them into a large unruly crowd.

    1. davcefai
      Coat

      I think that this might be a collective noun for Pi's

  6. Stuart Castle Silver badge

    At the beginning of Covid, I had an idea for a project that didn't specifically require a Pi, but I went for a Pi because it was relatively cheap, and had 8 gig of RAM (I was going to be mucking around with Docker, and possibly VMs, so more RAM is always good). It was only over going to be me using the project, and I didn't need masses of computer power, so the pi 4 8 gig would have been ideal.

    So, I ordered one. A couple of days before it was due to be delivered, I got a message saying the delivery was delayed by a couple of weeks. This happened a few times, with the delays gradually getting longer, until they reached 1 year. I cancelled the order, and forgot about the project.

    I know there are more powerful SBCs out there, but few have the community the PI enjoys, so when supplies ease, I'll probably restart the project.

  7. Lee D Silver badge

    I stopped buying RPis when they started being difficult to obtain at a decent price.

    I might start buying them again when they start being easy to obtain at a decent price.

    Sorry, but all pontification aside, it's really that simple. And now the Pi4 is... what... 4 years old.

    I don't even understand why you're making them rather than a newer model. It would seem like the perfect time to actually make a Pi5, rather than drag out 4 year old designs that I KNOW you'll replace in a couple of years. And you could make such new designs with things that are available and don't need to be "stockpiled".

    Their handling of all this has basically put me off. Should have just said "Yeah, we can't make enough to meet demand. Pi5 will come in 2023." But instead they eke out a couple of units, which disappear in seconds, and bundle them only with unwanted junk to raise the price, and prefer your commercial customers over the hobbyists, schools, etc. that built the company up.

    I was on the verge of buying half-a-dozen 8Gb Pi4's, putting them into a rack, and running all sorts of stuff off them in my house. I abandoned that plan relatively early when it just got silly to obtain even one. I stopped that project there and it's been on hold ever since. If I do go back to that, likely a Pi won't figure - maybe a Pi clone or similar, but not a Pi. Not until they sort themselves out.

    And though you might have sold 800,000 last year, I literally saw ONE restock on The Pi Hut, which was the low-memory models, which were claimed in seconds. So as far I'm concerned, they just don't exist.

    1. karlkarl Silver badge

      Agreed, the most interesting part of the Pi wasn't the specs. It was the *availability*!

      > I might start buying them again when they start being easy to obtain at a decent price

      They basically priced themselves out of the market. I don't think they will ever fully recover that. They almost need to reset back to "cheap and cheerful" low performance hardware and start again.

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        The prices they're selling them for are the same ones as before, starting at a $35 model. It's true that there was a time when $35 would buy you 2 GB of RAM, and I think it's still only 1 GB now, but that's still rather cheap and cheerful. The supply problems mean that others are trying to sell them for higher prices, but not that the real prices have increased at all. If you are referring to those prices, how cheap do you want them to get? They have lower-power A and Zero boards which cost less as well, and those are a bit easier to find as well.

    2. Zola

      > "I don't even understand why you're making them rather than a newer model."

      > "... which disappear in seconds"

      I think you answered your own question.

      And when there's strong demand for existing products that are in short supply, why introduce a new product (that may be in short supply) knowing it will experience even stronger demand? Clear the backlog first... no need to make life harder for yourself than it already is.

    3. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

      So what have you bought instead? Those shitty Chinese copy-cats that have next to no support for it and flaky software at best? You'd be better off simply putting down the extra cash needed to buy a RPi and save yourself a bundle trying to get the Chinese crap working.

  8. Steve Graham

    Bugger

    I just bought a second-hand Pi 4 4Gb at about £10 over the new price, if you could obtain one.

    (It arrived today. I booted it up, and of course, it has systemd. I felt unclean until I downloaded and installed a Devuan image.)

    1. davcefai

      Re: Bugger

      Please, please, could you provide a link to your download? Haven't had success with what I've tried so far.

  9. AJ MacLeod

    Lenovo

    If my experience this year has been anything to go by it's no wonder Lenovo's profits are down... after several months of ordering, waiting a month for delivery, getting a notification that the order had been cancelled, again and again I eventually gave up.

    The overall stability of the Pi ecosystem (the products have been rock solid too) has been a big factor in my using them - it's a pity they aren't actually cheap now like they were initially though.

  10. bpfh
    Mushroom

    Can find them on Amazon ...

    262 euros for a pi4 / 4gb / basic case, fan and heat sinks. What I would expect to pay 80 for if they got their supply chain in order...

    1. David Hicklin Bronze badge

      Re: Can find them on Amazon ...

      Those are the price gougers but if you look with Camel Camel Camel the prices are starting to drop, and I look forward to them being out of pocket when the supply chain is sorted.

      I have a couple of 3's on back order from Farnell, will hopefully be a nice Christmas present with a November estimate !

  11. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

    Bonds

    I dislike the strong bonds between Broadcom and the Raspberry Pi Foundation. I know Eben Upton (the CEO and founder) is a former Broadcom employee, but why can't they shift to other processors in newer versions? I see no reason for it.

    1. James 51

      Re: Bonds

      I think the person above had it right. If they can't meet demand for existing models, creating even more demand they couldn't meet with a new model would only make things worse. Better to wait a little longer, clear the backlog and secure their supply chain before handing out a fresh slice of pi.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bonds

      Find me a SOC at similar price tag and capability, where the majority of the technical data sheets are (largely) available.

      Even then, Broadcom had to be dragged kicking and screaming into releasing the relevant material; but by and large they have realised the benefit of open release over closed source.

      I don't really understand the terror that manufacturers have about releasing data that makes their product more usable than the competitors. Commodore routinely used to give out schematics for the C64 and Amiga 1000 / 500 / 2000 (can't speak for the 1200 - I never had that one) much to the advantage of the ecosystem of stuff made FOR the Commodore.

      1. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

        Re: Bonds

        I assume it's to prevent competitors knowing that they're infringing on their patents. There are so many junk-patents out there that even the most minute detail is probably patented. If your competitors have you schematics / datasheets etc. they can easily infer that you may be breaking their patents and use the documentation in a court case.

        Anyone have another plausible explanation?

    3. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Bonds

      There are no bonds between Broadcom and the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

      Raspberry Pi Foundation are a platform agnostic charitable STEM educational organisation. They don’t develop, manufacture or sell hardware and they don’t even necessarily use Rapsberry Pi hardware to do their work.

    4. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Bonds

      Currently they have a very strong compatibility continuity from their oldest SBCs to the newest with their device optimised Linux OS.

      I would love to see RISC V on à Pi and I have been buying up some of the RISC V SBCs that have appeared but, even given it’s early days, none have the platform stability of Raspberry Pi.

      In fact they are quite ropey.

  12. gryf0n

    I've just received my 9th notification that my order for Raspberry Pi 4 will be delayed.

    Ordered: January 2023

    Current estimated delivery: February 2024

    Production may be ramping up but its not feeling like they are getting into users' hands.

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