Raspberry Pi Zero 3 W and Pi 4 Model A on the Way?

17 points by technetium

msangi

I'm not planning to buy one but I still hope they manage to keep the same price points, especially for the Zero

adrien

The CPU upgrade for the Zero would definitely be welcome even if it's not 2x.

Overall, I really like raspberry pis but I'm also quite tired that some issues do not improve.

official cases look good on a desktop but can't be attached to anything afterwards (parallel sides would be a trivial improvement) and easily open with everything falling out
third-party cases are bad too and are troublesome for thermals and/or wifi signal especially with metal cases around the antenna (and the fact the antenna is effectively directionnal due to PCB)
HATs are supposedly a big feature but they're incredibly painful with cases
storage is terribly slow and still unreliable with SD cards that die; now I have an NVMe base but I also need a matching SSDs (I only have SATA ones available so I'll have to buy a 256G for 60 EUR, yay!), oh and I won't be able to put my RPi5 in a case anymore once I connect the base
power (i.e. USB) and micro-HDMI connections are still annoyingly unreliable

Raspberry Pis are great, the hardward works well, is supported for a long time, the software support is much much better than the competition. But the case and the mechanical aspects are really terrible. I don't think engineering is to blame; I think someone wants the case to look pretty and that comes at the expense of functionality, especially with something that small and cramped.

lknuth

Are you using them as Embedded platforms or for server-ish tasks? I run my "homelab" off of a Raspberry Pi 4 that is always on. Haven't had any issues with SD Cards or the powersupply in the last three years.
- adrien
  
  Currently as SBC and permanently connected. I've also used them as prototyping platforms and in server rooms; they're always sitting kind of awkwardly somewhere with ample space around.
  
  I really wish there were a hole to put some screw.
  
  My current thinking is probably influenced due to me having more hardware to hold photography stuff. In that world, everything can be screwed together merely with two thread sizes (and adapters between them) for cheap. There are also quick connect things that with more variations but it's not a big issue in practice (more an annoyance). Anyway, you can get any piece of hardware and hold it basically anywhere with confidence.