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IT Hardware Technology

Raspberry Pi Goes On Sale In US, Sells Out 75

hypnosec writes "Easter has brought some good news for Raspberry Pi fans in the US as the $25 Model A of the credit card sized computer is now available in the United States. Texas based Allied Electronics is the first local retailer selling the Raspberry Pi in the U.S. and has been selling the Pi through its online store. (There were companies selling the Raspberry Pi over eBay to U.S. users for a higher price tag earlier.) The Model A has sold out completely and as of this writing there is zero availability."
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Raspberry Pi Goes On Sale In US, Sells Out

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    So it's "now available" yet there is none available?

    I see.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 31, 2013 @02:57PM (#43326237)

    Customer: "They're selling this product for $50 below list price across the street."
    Retailer: "OK, so buy it across the street".
    Customer: "They said they don't have it in stock".
    Retailer: "If I didn't have it in stock, I could sell it for $100 off list."

    • by hamjudo ( 64140 )
      There were 70 units available when I read an article about it this morning. 46 left when I started to order my 2. They probably started with more, but still much closer to 10 than 300k.
  • by BitZtream ( 692029 ) on Sunday March 31, 2013 @03:24PM (#43326327)

    Allied isn't the only retailer that has them.

    I can see 3 different US resellers with them in stock, shipping today, as others mentioned in posts. Model As and Bs.

    The Raspberry Pi itself has been on sale in the US over a year.

    The only people buying As are the ones who don't know how to find Bs and think there is no one other than the two adwords results at the top of Google search list that sell them.

    Congratulations, you posted a story about a rather well known and popular computing device ... and get every single detail of it wrong in every possible way.

    You have whole demonstrated you have no fucking clue what you are doing.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      The only people buying As are the ones who don't know how to find Bs

      Ok, you have no clue.

    • by evilandi ( 2800 ) <andrew@aoakley.com> on Sunday March 31, 2013 @04:29PM (#43326673) Homepage

      >The only people buying As are the ones who don't know how to find Bs

      Bzzt. Wrong. Model A is the low-power version preferred by the "maker" community, as having no ethernet and no built-in USB hub, it consumes just 300mA / 1.5W compared to Model B's 600mA / 3.5W. Connect a Model A to a cheapo "emergency phone charger" and you can go for quite a while. Adding a USB nano bluetooth adaptor or wifi adaptor edges up the consumption by 100-150mA, still well under the Model B.

      If you're looking for something to be the heart of something battery powered, like a remote control car, mobile robot or something you can port around with you, the Model A is where you want to be. Well, assuming you want a "full" Linux box - if your project only requires very minimal computing power then an Arduino will cost even less, but you usually have to control it from another PC.

      • by hamjudo ( 64140 ) on Sunday March 31, 2013 @05:23PM (#43326935) Homepage Journal
        I ordered two Model A's this morning. (I saw it in the Raspberry Pi news section of Google News.)

        I already have a few Model B's. I will develop on a Model B, because the ram makes a performance difference. My projects seem to either need more than 2 USB ports anyway, so the built in 2 port USB hub on the B doesn't help. I usually have an external hub. And most things I do are wireless, so the built in ethernet isn't useful. So why pay the extra 3.5 watts?

      • You fail for using the word maker in quotes.

        • by gd2shoe ( 747932 )

          There are people who make things - It would be appropriate to call them makers... And then there are people who subscribe to the philosophy that this is somehow new and brilliant. This rubs some people the wrong way, and they may decide to call attention to it by placing "maker" in quotes.

          Personally, I think the maker movement is a good thing, but they've attracted some of the lunatic fringe. Some "makers" are neither making useful things, nor are they as cool as they'd like to believe. Yet they're part

      • by Wolfrider ( 856 )

        --At times like this I feel compelled to mention the Cubieboard - it can run at 500mA / 1W (altho 2W is preferred IIRC; personally I power mine off the USB port on my Router or TV), has better hardware specs than the Pi -- including a SATA port, and can actually *max out* its Ethernet 100Mbit connection. It's a bit pricier, but a much more capable Linux board - it's become my primary Squid server for the household.

        http://cubieboard.org/ [cubieboard.org]

    • by turkeyfeathers ( 843622 ) on Sunday March 31, 2013 @04:39PM (#43326711)
      I'm going to use my RaspberryPi to mine BitCoins... guaranteed front page story on Slashdot.
      • by Mashiki ( 184564 )

        Should take you only 70 or 80 years to make a block or two at that rate.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Throw in an angry Linus Torvald's rant, dedicate it to Aaron Schwartz and blame any failures on a patent lawsuit by Monsanto.

        You'll blow people's minds.

    • www.microcenter.com has them in stock, we some friends we picked up 4. Oh and only $39.99 for the model B wtih 512MB. Built a lego case for now, will 3D print a real case later. Using OpenElec and Raspbian and loving it. Now I only have to find a way to merge it with the Arduino's......
  • The Model B is available at MCM Electronics and they have the cases, pi/case combos, Gerboard, Pi-Face, Humble-Pi, Slice of Pi, Arduino goodies, screens, user interface stuff etc.... . 99.9% of their business is mail order but their massive warehouse is a short drive for me. Anytime I need electronics components I just call them up and go pick up my stuff at the little window behind the warehouse.
    • he Model B is available at MCM Electronics and they have the cases, pi/case combos, Gerboard, Pi-Face, Humble-Pi, Slice of Pi, Arduino goodies, screens, user interface stuff etc.... .

      With $15.99 shipping. No thank you.

      • For me it is awesome since I can pick my stuff up and it is only 40 minutes round trip. Maybe if a few thousand of you send me money I can ship them out much cheaper. I'd want cash of course.
  • has had the Raspberry Pi available [mcmelectronics.com] for several months now.

    It seems that the article only refers to sales from Allied, not any of the other dozen places you could get one in the US from.

    It's like hearing pretzels are sold out and unavailable in the US, only to read closer and see that just one store sold out of their initial inventory.

  • News that matters? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by pongo000 ( 97357 )

    I bought two Pi B's from Allied just before Christmas. Am enjoying both of them right now. What, exactly, is the point of this story?

    • by Anonymous Coward

      What, exactly, is the point of this story?

      ** commercial space for rent **

      Am I missing something?

    • The Pi B is a different product from the Pi A.

      What, exactly, is the point of your post?

      What, exactly, is the point of, all, these, commas?

  • I was toying with the idea of using some of the techniques others have done on the Model B to reduce power but make it switchable. Like on freneticrapport except leaving the components on the PCB. It would be a challenge.
  • At least some articles about the raspberry pi have some value added by showing you stuff you can do with it.

    This is just a shameless plug to sell the product, and from what I have seen there are a lot of products with similar or better capabilities in smaller form factor with a case and power.

    • Shameless plug? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Dunno what planet you live on, but there's now over a million of the little buggers out in the wild - not bad for a credit-card sized basic computer system that runs Linux (other OS's available too, btw). If the sales of the model B had been in line with the Foundations initial expectation, ie around 10,000 or so, then "shameless plugs might be the order of the day.

      For someting thats not a general consumer item, then SALES of a million devices in just over a year (not just inventory stock) is bloody good

      • by arth1 ( 260657 )

        not bad for a credit-card sized basic computer system

        It's not credit card sized. It's credit card length.
        Their goal was to make it with a credit card sized footprint, so it could fit into existing cases, but they failed on the height.

        ISO 7810 specifies credit cards as 85.60 x 53.98 x 0.76 mm (plus embossing).
        The Raspberry Pi is 85.60 x 56 x 21 mm.

      • Re:Shameless plug? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by hamster_nz ( 656572 ) on Sunday March 31, 2013 @08:25PM (#43327777)

        I am playing with a pcDuino from Gadget Factory [gadgetfactory.net], and they are also available from Sparkfun dealers.

        At US$59 it is a bit more expensive, but does have a few advantages

        - Onboard 2GB of Flash to hold an OS - no SD card needed!
        - Decent Power supply system for USB ports
        - 1GHz A8 CPU - More than 2x as fast
        - 1GB RAM
        - Mali 400 graphics accelerator
        - Android image available
        - No need for an I/O expander for hardware hacking

        Once you take off the cost of a powered USB hub and an SD card for the making the Pi usable I think it is price neutral between the two.

        I've been using Android on it to play back 1080p files (at 720p) without a problem, and play Angry Birds Star Wars... can't do that on a Pi.

        The Australian company Miniand make similar boards, some with cases and so on. Their Cubieboard even has SATA header on it, and I've got one with a 2.5" 120GB disk hanging off it...

        • Forgot to say, the pcDuino is US$59 + shipping, the Cubieboard is US$65+shipping (and that included cables and case). Both came in about a week to New Zealand.

          This website [linux-sunxi.org] is the center of the world for the Allwinner A10 SoC that these boards and quite a few other systems are based on, and individual boards have their own board specific forums too (e.g. http://www.pcduino.com/ [pcduino.com]) . As the A10 SoC is used in a lot of low-end Android tablets I am pretty sure that it will have shipped more units than Raspberry

  • What, Newark element14 is not easy enough to order from? Does it really matter? My two Raspberry Pi units arrived almost instantly from Newark element14 the moment they became available.

    Why is this news? Just cut it out, already.

    • by kriston ( 7886 )

      In case you didn't already know, Newark element14 is a USA vendor owned by Premier Farnel and based in Indiana. This so-called "news" story is a waste of everyone's time.

      Sheesh.

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