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Pi Foundation Announced the New Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+

By on November 17, 2018
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The new Pi 3 Model A+ is supposed to be a smaller model but with most of the advantages of the Model B+. It has similar specifications, except that you get 512MB of RAM instead of 1GB, there’s only one USB 2.0 port and the Ethernet port is gone. It costs $25, or $10 less than the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, and if you don’t need a ton of RAM or Ethernet, it’s a surprisingly decent mini-computer.

It provides the same HDMI port, microSD slot, DSI and CSI interfaces, and composite port as the latest 3B+. Like the 3B+, you get a pre-certified dual-band WiFi-ac/Bluetooth 4.2 module, which appears to be the same Cypress CYW43455 part.

The following specifications are listed for the Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+:

  • Processor — Broadcom BCM2837B0 (4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.4GHz); VideoCore IV GPU
  • Memory/storage — 512MB SDRAM; microSD slot
  • Wireless — 2.4GHz/5GHz 802.11.b/g/n/ac with Bluetooth 4.2/BLE
  • Other I/O:
    • HDMI port with 1080p30 H.264 and MPEG-4 decode
    • Composite video plus stereo outputs on 4-pole 3.5mm jack
    • MIPI-DSI display
    • MIPI-CSI camera with 1080p30 H.264 encode
  • USB 2.0 host port
  • Micro-USB device port for power
  • Expansion — 40-pin GPIO (“HAT” compatible)
  • Power — 5V/2.5A DC input via micro-USB or GPIO header
  • Dimensions — 65 x 56mm
  • Operating system — Raspbian and other RPi supported distros

Like the other Pi models, it’s mostly open-spec but impossible to precisely reproduce due in part to RPI Trading’s monopoly on the Broadcom SoC.

The official announcement also mentions improvements over the 3B+ regarding USB mass-storage booting and thermal management, but offers no details.

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