That a good point. Let's hope the RAM hoarding will eventually get us that and not bullshitting hallucination machines.

Market bubbles bursting doesn't lead to consumer price drops. The reduced demand from data centres will lead to a reduction in manufacturing rather a lower price.

There's no substitution good here.

Why would they ever voluntarily lower prices? They've price fixed multiple times.

I mean, sucks to be a buyer right now but as a developer I like where things are heading :( :)

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/raspberry-pi-ram-lock...

I also don't see any mention of it in this article?

But every single day in the meantime, RAM prices will continue fluctuate, and arbitrage takes advantage of this. And arbitrate markets don't even necessarily track new RAM prices, if someone dumps a bunch of used LPDDR devices in China, people may harvest used memory for arbitrage.

But the USA is definitely forcing Deepseek to learn how to write leaner code! Bring it on.

Since they're still improving models, they still are learning how to program, it's just a meta game now, not the specific intricacies.

the pi5 1GB model is now $45, so with inflation etc that's not too bad considering the feature set.

However, getting your hands on a 1GB model these days is practically impossible unless you go used.

The Foundation and the Trading Company have different goals, and the Foundation is not wedded to the Linux SBC Pi at all for this.

Physical computing education with Python is more than adequately served by the RP2040 and RP2350, and that is more or less where their focus is.

(Beyond that I think most of this is just geek whining, to be honest.)

'Our mission is to put high-performance, low-cost, general-purpose computing platforms in the hands of people and organisations all over the world,'

Hard to do that when you keep jacking the prices up.

The 3B was my Octoprint server for the longest time while I was testing the 4B for a product, but for reasons I don't really understand, the 3B isn't quite punchy enough for Klipper, when it fully should be; it drops connections to the printer.

Haven't replaced any of them yet, don't really need to. Rather more interested in what happens with the Picos these days.

Unfortunately there is no appetite for governments to step in.

The development experience of something like Android itself seems super unfriendly for beginners (as someone who is admittedly a beginner to it)

It's definitely a bit odd, the Android environment, but I didn't feel blocked on it. Also ended up unrooting one because termux and the built in debian VM on Android now give everything I need

Termux + X11+ XFCE is surprisingly nice on a vanilla phone

Most people realized that the Raspberry Pi was never a great desktop or server replacement a long time ago.

It's an embedded system and it's best when used for embedded applications.

These are still purchased and used by hobbyists, but the people who were trying to use them as servers or desktops are not the target audience.

For example I got several broken screen Huawei P20s from 2018, they were 10€ each. 128GB storage with 4GB RAM https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_p20-9107.php

They boot up, you can install termux and then whatever is your choice of Linux software. I run several copyparty instances for friends and family

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux/

https://github.com/9001/copyparty

There's laptops or X86 tablets with soldered RAM but those are rare and vanish immediately if they show up at a good price.

If you really need GPIO then add a USB-C OTG MCU board like a ESP32, or even the ancient Arduino works via USB and serial TTY on Android.

Adafruit FT232H Breakout - General Purpose USB to GPIO, SPI, I2C https://www.adafruit.com/product/2264

(or even more cheaply a CH347T board which are dirt cheap on Aliexpress)

Both have decent Python support.

Slightly more expensive but you won't have to deal with battery health and the new ones come with a 1GB NIC and USB 3 ports!

They currently go for ~60 USD which steep compared to the pre-ram crisis prices but nothing crazy.

For comparison sake, you can find a few really high-end routers that are faster but most are a lot less powerful than this.

The CPU/GPU actually allows you to emulate a fair amount, up to N64, PSP and Dreamcast (but definitely with some compromise) so they function great as retroboxes as well.

They sip power and run great as a small homeserver. You can even use them as a NAS for media (that you're willing to lose since you won't be running any form of RAID with 1 USB 3.0 port).

Rooting with a completely melted screen would be a little harder, but hey, maybe rooting could be done by following the instructions step-by-step with a little faith, and then post-root the USB might work with an external portable monitor? I'm sure it's a solvable problem.

There is Android TalkBack (for poor vision) which is available on first boot/factory reset that narrates the menu. Even with a completely broken screen you can get ADB set up.

>The only thing I'm not a big fan of is the charging. Non-removable battery, already 8 or so years old, obviously the phone needs power to work. So I'm a bit worried about the fire hazard.

My family (n=3) owned the Huawei P20 (acquired at the same time in the same promo, perhaps the same batch?). This product line seems to have serious issues with battery swelling. Each phone had spicy pillows at some point within 2.5 years of ownership. Even outside the warranty period, Huawei was willing to replace the battery for free at their cost at their contracted Toronto repair centre. Each of the repaired phones had their spicy pillows return within 6-9 months. I strongly suspect Huawei was avoiding doing a voluntary recall.

Sometimes there are pretty good deals on laptops, especially off lease. I've seen some $400-500 w/ 32GB RAM pop up on Slickdeals every few months.

The battery is a free built-in UPS and isn't a fire hazard unless the charging electronics were designed spectacularly poorly. The BMS knows to stop charging the battery when it's full. All of these phones probably use the same set of well-known BMS chips, I would imagine.

Secondly, using a device on a battery to run 24/24 is nonsense, you are Puting a lot of work on the battery by constantly getting it at 100% and eventually it will break and with it your data.

Thirdly, these devices have just a usb port. Sometimes usb 2.0. What you gonna do when the 128gb is filled up ?

I was looking to try out Joel's TrueNAS on ARM this time with a Pi 5, a PoE and NVMe Hat ... I decided against it and ended up getting a good old cheap x86 compact NAS instead.

The pricing is off.

Reballing the RAM of the Raspberry Pi is blocked by its firmware:

https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?p=2380887#p2380...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49786689

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-eeprom/issues/761

Quote from your referenced article:

"even the bootloader is cryptographically signed – no patching out the RAM check code, sorry to spoil it."

So, according to this article, you really have to downgrade the bootloader to an old version that does not yet contain the RAM check.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-2-w/

It also has twice the RAM of the original Raspberry Pi (at launch), plus WiFi, plus a lot of CPU power, and a powerful GPU, and a lot more.

I have a 16GB model and I use that much RAM for some specific development work on the Raspberry Pi platform, but now I wish they had never announced the 16GB model. It has created so many complaints from people who shouldn't and won't be buying it.

If my computer fails, I have plenty of old components from older systems that I can swap in. I also have quite a few old phones (my primary job over the past decade has been Android development, so I have older test devices that still function fine for my purposes). And consoles are just very optional (and way more costly than I am willing to pay) when they start costing $1500+.

ESP32 handles IO and streams data somewhere else that does any processing needed on more powerful hardware.

What on earth are these SKUs even targeting? 16GB in a raspi is nuts.

0: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/09/inau...

Modern top-of-the-line RasPis seem more like ARM PCs with fast, efficient multi-core CPUs and GigE. I bought a RasPi 500 at the beginning of the year just to see what it was like and it's my new "email and light web browsing" daily-driver. Though yeah, I probably wouldn't have paid $410 for it.

I bought my original RasPi mostly for the I/O. I wanted to blink some lights, drive some servos. And if I wanted to do that again, I would probably buy a Pico or Zero.

Yeah, because a second-hand 13-year-old computer is gonna last quite a long time.

Ex

Ignoring all of that for a second, and focusing on the generalized sentiment:

    I have a 60 year old computer attached to my 
    [...] and it's doing fine

Even "browsing the web" is (highly unfortunately) not a fixed purpose, as web standards evolve and pages (highly unfortunately) get heavier and more JS-dependent.

You want the Pi Zero 2 W, which is under $20 when it's in stock.

You also need to buy somewhere other than Amazon, which is where sellers go to unload their inventory at exorbitant prices between restocks.

And it runs a fantastic CachyOS (a super tuned Arch) install, called ArmadaOS, https://armadaos.dev/

Call me cynical after being burned countless times on niche-ass platforms. Even my Framework 13" has a flurry of issues I've never seen on more mainstream hardware. Life is too short to worry about bizarre firmware issues in hardware that no one is paid to support.

I for one am delighted that you can buy a modern-ish high performance, modern processing node based system, that's small, that has such incredible capabilities, that's super power efficient. And that finally it runs a mean Linux!

Most hobby use cases would be fine with the 1GB, 4GB, or even 8GB versions.

I thought we all established long ago that trying to use a Raspberry Pi like a computer or laptop replacement was not a good idea, because every past Rapsberry Pi thread has been inundated with comments encouraging everyone to get a NUC or a used computer instead.

The Raspberry Pi is great if you need what it offers, but at some point the mainstream Raspberry Pi community lost the plot and started treating them like laptop, desktop, or server replacements, which they were never great at. Now that the people who need a desktop or server have re-discovered that they're better off using an actual desktop or an actual server for their purposes, we should get back to treating these like embedded systems boards.

Oh yup... I'm running unbound (DNS resolver) at home 24/7 on a Pi 3 from 2015 since years and years. Zero issue. I run that on a Pi because that one really needs to be on 24/7 and hardly consumes any resources (I mean: it's just DNS queries). But a Pi simply ain't good for much more than that.

> I thought we all established long ago that trying to use a Raspberry Pi like a computer or laptop replacement was not a good idea, because every past Rapsberry Pi thread has been inundated with comments encouraging everyone to get a NUC or a used computer instead.

I fully agree. For the proper stuff I encourage anyone to buy used enterprise gear with proper RAM (i.e. ECC RAM) and a proper CPU (like a Xeon).

I've got four NUCs too but the real workhorse is a used Xeon with ECC RAM.

> The Raspberry Pi is great if you need what it offers, but at some point the mainstream Raspberry Pi community lost the plot and started treating them like laptop, desktop, or server replacements, which they were never great at.

I agree. I've got like seven Pi (I was an early adopter of those) but don't ever plan to buy another.

It's like you said: they lost the plot (not just the community: those who make them too).

The thing is, they are all x86. The currently available ways to get an ARM general purpose computer are... Raspberry, Raspberry clones of various degrees of shittyness, Apple's lineup and a few Chromebooks plus even rarer Windows systems that no one wants because nothing runs on them.

You might want to give Windows on Arm another spin if you haven't touched it lately, because you're either operating on very outdated information or you work in a very narrow field. Everything I tried throwing at it runs on mine. Exceptions are some drivers and kernel mode anticheat in games.

[1] https://itdaily.com/blogs/workplace/qualcomm-snapdragon-x-pc...

And now you pay that much for 4GB.

And supply failed to follow.

This is not the same stuff as an H100 uses, and it’s not even made in the same facilities, is it?

A workstation user or gamer might want a desktop PC loaded with DDR5. But they'll also consider a desktop with DDR4 or even a laptop with LPDDR4X if they get more for their money.

So a rise in demand/prices for DDR5 can trigger a lesser rise in demand/prices for LPDDR4X

I don't expect the RAM industry will respond to it with much increased output at the low end, though. They'll just enjoy these high prices on their current output, and focus their resources towards the high end where the margins are even higher.

The cost of 16GB Raspberry Pi is driven by the RAM. Everything else is a small addition to the BOM cost.

The 16GB was introduced when it was affordable. Now it's just becoming a mental obstacle for buyers who think they should only purchase something if they can get the top model. That's why I suggest everyone pretend it doesn't exist. Unless you really need it for something, the 4GB or 8GB can do most things.

Why are so many people angry at a situation that doesn't exist?

The use cases above don't need a $385 16GB Raspberry Pi 5.

Did you notice they weren't even using a Raspberry Pi 5?

A 1GB Raspberry Pi 4, which would run those applications, is $35 and in stock: https://www.pishop.us/product/raspberry-pi-4-model-b-1gb/

You are the one making up a situation here.

I'll quote it for you:

> A Pi 4 is my son's primary computer

So, no, I am not making up a situation.

Even if using those, if it's not in a robot or a weatherproof box on a pole or something, then a usb gpio dongle on a pc or mac makes 900x more sense.

The fact that something is done does not serve as an example that something makes any sense to do.

Using a pi for a computer is like when women knit sweaters for things that don't benefit from sweaters.

They would be fine with the low RAM models.

This is my point above: Most people should ignore the 16GB model.

I need to `npm install strip`

If you created a little cube the size of an Apple Watch with built in WiFi and Bluetooth, and maybe put a little LED screen on it, and it could run Linux and could be powered with POE and USB-C or something, people would feel an urge to just buy one, with no real use case for it.

It controls whatevwhatever hardware, reads some sensors, etc.

Then when needed gets oders from a normal computer over network or BLE via some simple protocol.

In reality, though, the use cases where you need Linux and GPIO are very slim. It's overkill, an ESP32 is realistically more than powerful enough, and Linux isn't even good for GPIO.

IDK why anyone would build a full product around one, versus the more sensible option of maybe prototyping with one while planning a shift, whether it's the 'Version 2' or something. Anything other than dependence in a full platform when half the point of ARM was how easy it is to get your own semi-custom spin.

https://www.compulab.com/products/system-on-modules/?gad_sou...

I haven't cross refence but this looks like the Linux SBC that is inside the Eightsleep

https://www.compulab.com/products/computer-on-modules/cl-som...

Yes, I'm missing an NVMe SSD in there too, but I've got a bunch of older 512GB drives around from upgraded computers.

Power usage is probably lower on the Pi5, but likely not by much anymore in the idle state.

So how much was it new?

If you don’t need GPIO just go with NUC/Minisforum.

That's not to say I don't have much beefier work computers - I do - but for the rPi 500 is a perfectly cromulent home computer. It's a computer. I just plug it in, it works.

*: I am so glad we're finally out of the phase where people were using Pis for hobbyist tasks where an Arduino would have worked just fine. Especially now that there are so many cheap, accessible microcontrollers. ESP32s obviously, but Raspberry's own RP2040/RP2350 have been more useful to me than the Pis themselves ever were.

If you do need something like a raspberry pi I think the Arduino Uno Q is a solid choice. The 4 GB RAM variant is iirc $80 or so.

Be careful, Sam Altman might be reading this!

Not only that, I bet most hobby use cases can be served fine by the older and cheaper Raspberry Pi 2, 3 or 4 models, which are still being sold.

I use it as a mini NAS to avoid powering up my Synology too often (crazy electricity prices here). It runs Tailscale, Samba, Docker, Postgres+pgbackrest, nginx, Pihole, and some bespoke apps I developed. Just looking at htop, I could probably get away with the 4GB model, but I wanted plenty of scope for adding more custom webapps and services like HomeAssistant.

I'm sick and tired of this memory austerity. Don't go blaming consumers for issues that the ai companies caused. I should be allowed to want a 32GB rpi5 for €75.

1) AI really does require a scaleup in compute power. In other words: you will be upgrading your hardware or use old software.

2) the AI buildout means you can't buy the hardware, you can only rent it "in the cloud".

It only works, of course, if Amazon and Google and Meta and ... keep buying for another 2-3 years but that seems to be exactly what's happening.

Worst of all: monopolies used to at least require investment. But Amazon and Google aren't investing, really. They're still net profitable companies. It's almost insulting.

The fact that Hugging Face was attacked not by a small amount of compute but such a vast amount of computation. It was only possible because its already so centralized by Open AI.

It feels a bit like cyberpunk where only the big companies in reality will have the resource to pull of such an attack.

For everything else, either go lower level with ESP32 or higher level with a mini pc.

That's where we are right now.

You'll be told its the price of PCBs and chips, but again, the same company can deliver a box of three Xiao brand ESP32 dev boards to my door tomorrow morning for a hair over $20 including tax and shipping and handling.

You'll be told its a temporary supply chain disruption until you remember they've been pulling that scam for some years now, and as long as people fall for it and throw money at them, they'll keep pushing it.

The problem is they sold out to the hardcover textbook manufacturer business model. Take the head of the EE dept out for dinner and box seats at last night's sportsball game, suspiciously the EE department syllabus now says you need to buy it or else, and the seller says now that its a mandatory purchase "will pay anything for an education" in response they will charge "anything" which apparently is $385. See also Boomers and "will pay anything for medical care" well they know that and wait until you see the bill LOL. Also see real estate bubbles.

I don't see why they don't raise the price to that of an Apple Neo laptop. Its the same market and business model, pay what we ask or die uneducated and unemployed under a freeway overpass. Don't you want your kids to learn STEM and be successful? Well that'll be $385. Its the new "World Book Encyclopedia" scam.

Once you've done that, and your max latency has dropped to 0.7% of what it use to be (yes, really, the SD card had 140x higher latency than the SSD on my system), carve out 32GB for swap and call it done. This will give you vastly better throughput on any likely use case that's not purely dependent on RAM size alone.

If I were using this as a portable desktop system, like I am with my uConsole, I'd rather have 4GB of RAM and fast storage than 16GB and the SD card. One of them is fine, just a little sluggish sometimes. The other is pretty nice, until it grinds to a halt for minutes at a time. If `apt upgrade` is your benchmark, SSD >> RAM by a wide margin.

The downside is that it won't just run all the Raspbian images that float around, which is IMO the main selling point of a RasPi: a unified hardware platform that a non-technical user can just burn an image for and go.

I know that ram is expensive but it doesn’t nearly explain these pricing.

For less than a raspberry price, I got a full mini pc with 16gb ram, 512gb ssd and it got a much more powerful x64 amd chipset inside.

This company should be out of business.

for stuff like running vms or other pure compute homelabs, folks should stop using raspberry pis, and just go the used pc route

I miss those days.

Now a slower model like the rpi5 costs more than twice as much.