RASPBERRY Pi 3 Model B+

VERDICT

It’s a minor update, but the Pi 3 Model B+ feels like a much more complete system and remains the ultimate project computer

- David Ludlow

IT’S BEEN TWO years since Raspberry Pi last regaled us with a ‘full fat’ new model, with the foundation having released the Raspberry Pi Model 3 (Shopper 340) back in February 2016. Today, we have that model’s successor, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+.

As you might guess from that model name, this new computer isn’t a revolution, but an incremental update, improving on the original’s minor shortcomings. As such, the new model has a slightly faster processor, dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and faster wired networking as its stand-out features.

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

Of course, these are all differences that are hard to spot from the outside. In fact, stand the Model 3 next to the Model B+, and you’d be hard-pressed to see anything that has changed.

The board size remains the same, and you get the same layout, with the full 40-pin GPIO header, headers for the camera and screen, four USB2 ports, a microSD card slot and a Micro USB power input. For the latter, we recommend using a 2.0A USB charger to provide enough power for the USB ports.

Take a closer look, and you’ll see that the processor now has a very small heatsink attached to it. That’s because the quad-core Broadcom BCM2837 CPU has been clocked to 1.4GHz, up from 1.2GHz on the Pi Model 3.