Probably because $250 is wildy misleading. This is an all inclusive kit which includes case, heat sinks, fan, micro-hdmi cables, power supply and you have to go for the 16gb rpi 5 to reach $230. All the things I want to do with a Pi I would really only need 4gb of RAM max, which the kit is $140.
The 16gb rpi 5 on its own with no extras is $145 and the 4gb on its own with no extras is $70.
Sure that’s still a lot more than the original goal of $35 computing but you can still get a basic kit for the rpi Zero 2 W for $40. They also still sell rpi 3, 3A+, 3B+, and 4 kits for reasonable prices. I don’t necessarily need the full power of an rpi 5 either.
EDIT: Dug up some historical info. Raspberry Pi 4 released in 2019 and was $75 for the 8gb model board on it’s own. Right now just a board for a Pi 4 model B 8gb is $85. The 16gb Raspberry Pi 5 originally released at $120 and is now $145. I think people are really overblowing these price increases.
The increases hit the entire Pi 5 range: the 2GB model jumps $5 to $55, while the 16GB version rises $25 from $120 to $145. Select Raspberry Pi 4 models are also affected, with the 4GB version increasing to $60 (up $5) and the 8GB to $85 (up $10). The 16GB Compute Module 5 saw a $20 hike.
Lower-density Pi 4 models, the Pi 3 Model B+, and earlier boards remain unchanged, as does the Pi Zero.
The new Raspberry Pi 5 has just 1 GB of RAM and slips in at $45. In October 2025, Pi supremo Eben Upton noted that lower RAM densities weren’t suffering as much as others. The company, therefore, has some wiggle room at the 1 GB mark.
Considering the massive leap in RAM prices, these don’t seem like obscene increases to me. People are getting their fucking panties in a twist because they want the model with more RAM and seem to have forgotten that the Pi 3 maxed out at 4gb of RAM and the Pi 4 maxed out at 8gb of RAM. The Pi 5 is the first model to sport 16gb and it was $120 on release and has risen $25 due to RAM price increases, which is far less than consumer price for RAM has spiked. If anything the RPi company is doing a damn fine job of keeping prices down despite the RAM shortage. Considering that an 8gb stick of DDR4 is $60 and a 16gb stick of DDR4 is $125 yet you’re pissing your pants over a $10 increase in 8gb models and a $25 increase in the 16gb models which is fucking stupid.
Anyway, fucking cry more, god damned babies. It’s not like the Raspberry Pi company is the group at fault for the fucking high prices of RAM, get over it!
Funny enough I recently bought an N100 Mini-PC with 8GB (as a Christmas present to replace somebody’s aged Windows 8 PC) for just a bit over $140 (more precisely €123, so $143 at today’s exchange rate).
According to this the performance of the microprocessor on the Pi5 is at the same level as that of the N100.
So basically if you buy a Mini PC with an N100 and 8GB memory you can roughly get the performance of the Pi5 at the price of a Pi4 with only 4GB.
I think the point of the previous poster that “this is wild” is exactly right.
Unless you actually need the actual pins with I/O ports, I2C, SPI or such for controlling some electronics, you’re better of with the Mini PC and even if you do, you’re probably better of with a Banana Pi or an Orange Pi.
Pepperridge farm remembers when a Raspi was $25 and you could get a Zero for $5. I also remember it still being too expensive, so I bought a comperable OrangePi for $11 instead.
They’re out of stock at both Canakit and Vilros, but an original Pi Zero is still just $10 for the board.
Sure, that’s well beyond the inflation rate ($5 then would be about $6.89 now), but remember these are licensed resellers of official Pi products, so they have to mark them up at least a little to make a profit, especially now with tariffs affecting the imports. I wouldn’t call being marked up just over 30% all that insidious.
I’ve kinda come to expect in the last three decades I’ve been following this stuff that hardware has the tendency to both get better and cheaper as time goes on.
Like, RAM isn’t really expensive at all right now either if you think selling an 8GB stick of DDR4 for $160 today fine, as that is also 10 year old hardware at double the launch price.
So it’s not that I expect being able to buy an old Raspi model for $25 or $5, I expect to be able to the buy a newer better one without having to pay up to six times as much.
It’s hilarious that those older models tend to be more expensive used than what they originally cost. Are we getting the housing bubble in tech hardware now too?
Are we getting the housing bubble in tech hardware now too?
I mean, yes. It sucks for sure, and is absolutely wrecking the consumer market… But it’s not like we can magically change it. Scarcity drives up prices, that has always been the case, and on top of that we have tariffs impacting a lot of these items too.
All I can do is hope these AI companies fail as hard as they seem to be set up to fail.
I haven’t, that’s the point.
If a Raspi going from $25 to $145, an increase of 5.8x is fine, and a Zero from a decade back being twice the price today, then surely when you go from $10/GB of DDR4 to new shiny modern DDR5, that increase of 5.8x is all fine too. Just buy that decade old DDR4 for double the launch price if you think it’s too expensive.
And from looking at DIMMprice, it’s still “only” around $25/GB, that’s a pure bargain right?
Obviously neither of them are fine and both situations are utterly outrageous.
The price of a mini pc includes the price of the case, power supply, heat sinks, fans and such. The hdmi is the only thing suspect but if the case doesn’t expose the hdmi port that will be in the minipc as well. when you compare just the board of a pi to a full pc that is unfair.
I didn’t compare the board to the full price of a mini PC, I was giving the information for context.
Further the raw power of a Pi 5 with 16gb of RAM is genuinely equivalent to a lot of thin client desktops with a lot more extensibility. I think you’re getting what you pay for, honestly.
I’m not going to say they shouldn’t be a little cheaper, but the Pi 5 is kind of a powerhouse compared to older Pis and you have to push for the 16gb of RAM version to make it actually expensive.
Once again the 4gb kit is $140 and with a lightweight Linux distro that’s honestly more than enough for basic desktop life of web browsing and email.
Probably because $250 is wildy misleading. This is an all inclusive kit which includes case, heat sinks, fan, micro-hdmi cables, power supply and you have to go for the 16gb rpi 5 to reach $230. All the things I want to do with a Pi I would really only need 4gb of RAM max, which the kit is $140.
The 16gb rpi 5 on its own with no extras is $145 and the 4gb on its own with no extras is $70.
Sure that’s still a lot more than the original goal of $35 computing but you can still get a basic kit for the rpi Zero 2 W for $40. They also still sell rpi 3, 3A+, 3B+, and 4 kits for reasonable prices. I don’t necessarily need the full power of an rpi 5 either.
EDIT: Dug up some historical info. Raspberry Pi 4 released in 2019 and was $75 for the 8gb model board on it’s own. Right now just a board for a Pi 4 model B 8gb is $85. The 16gb Raspberry Pi 5 originally released at $120 and is now $145. I think people are really overblowing these price increases.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/01/raspberry_pi_5_1gb/
Considering the massive leap in RAM prices, these don’t seem like obscene increases to me. People are getting their fucking panties in a twist because they want the model with more RAM and seem to have forgotten that the Pi 3 maxed out at 4gb of RAM and the Pi 4 maxed out at 8gb of RAM. The Pi 5 is the first model to sport 16gb and it was $120 on release and has risen $25 due to RAM price increases, which is far less than consumer price for RAM has spiked. If anything the RPi company is doing a damn fine job of keeping prices down despite the RAM shortage. Considering that an 8gb stick of DDR4 is $60 and a 16gb stick of DDR4 is $125 yet you’re pissing your pants over a $10 increase in 8gb models and a $25 increase in the 16gb models which is fucking stupid.
Anyway, fucking cry more, god damned babies. It’s not like the Raspberry Pi company is the group at fault for the fucking high prices of RAM, get over it!
Funny enough I recently bought an N100 Mini-PC with 8GB (as a Christmas present to replace somebody’s aged Windows 8 PC) for just a bit over $140 (more precisely €123, so $143 at today’s exchange rate).
According to this the performance of the microprocessor on the Pi5 is at the same level as that of the N100.
So basically if you buy a Mini PC with an N100 and 8GB memory you can roughly get the performance of the Pi5 at the price of a Pi4 with only 4GB.
I think the point of the previous poster that “this is wild” is exactly right.
Unless you actually need the actual pins with I/O ports, I2C, SPI or such for controlling some electronics, you’re better of with the Mini PC and even if you do, you’re probably better of with a Banana Pi or an Orange Pi.
Ok, well $145 for a rpi 5 is wild.
Pepperridge farm remembers when a Raspi was $25 and you could get a Zero for $5. I also remember it still being too expensive, so I bought a comperable OrangePi for $11 instead.
Fuck. 25 to 50 for a pi is like the most that should be.
They’re out of stock at both Canakit and Vilros, but an original Pi Zero is still just $10 for the board.
Sure, that’s well beyond the inflation rate ($5 then would be about $6.89 now), but remember these are licensed resellers of official Pi products, so they have to mark them up at least a little to make a profit, especially now with tariffs affecting the imports. I wouldn’t call being marked up just over 30% all that insidious.
I’ve kinda come to expect in the last three decades I’ve been following this stuff that hardware has the tendency to both get better and cheaper as time goes on.
Like, RAM isn’t really expensive at all right now either if you think selling an 8GB stick of DDR4 for $160 today fine, as that is also 10 year old hardware at double the launch price.
So it’s not that I expect being able to buy an old Raspi model for $25 or $5, I expect to be able to the buy a newer better one without having to pay up to six times as much.
It’s hilarious that those older models tend to be more expensive used than what they originally cost. Are we getting the housing bubble in tech hardware now too?
I mean, yes. It sucks for sure, and is absolutely wrecking the consumer market… But it’s not like we can magically change it. Scarcity drives up prices, that has always been the case, and on top of that we have tariffs impacting a lot of these items too.
All I can do is hope these AI companies fail as hard as they seem to be set up to fail.
Uh… You’ve missed some news. https://www.dimmprice.com/
You uh missed some news https://www.npr.org/2025/12/28/nx-s1-5656190/ai-chips-memory-prices-ram
I haven’t, that’s the point.
If a Raspi going from $25 to $145, an increase of 5.8x is fine, and a Zero from a decade back being twice the price today, then surely when you go from $10/GB of DDR4 to new shiny modern DDR5, that increase of 5.8x is all fine too. Just buy that decade old DDR4 for double the launch price if you think it’s too expensive.
And from looking at DIMMprice, it’s still “only” around $25/GB, that’s a pure bargain right?
Obviously neither of them are fine and both situations are utterly outrageous.
Mr Jonathon Swift over here, it took me a moment to recognize your Proposal was Modest, given Poe’s Law.
Thanks, read too quickly after work and completely misunderstood.
To be fair they weren’t saying they think it’s fine, they were implying that I do. They are obviously aware of inflated prices.
The price of a mini pc includes the price of the case, power supply, heat sinks, fans and such. The hdmi is the only thing suspect but if the case doesn’t expose the hdmi port that will be in the minipc as well. when you compare just the board of a pi to a full pc that is unfair.
I didn’t compare the board to the full price of a mini PC, I was giving the information for context.
Further the raw power of a Pi 5 with 16gb of RAM is genuinely equivalent to a lot of thin client desktops with a lot more extensibility. I think you’re getting what you pay for, honestly.
I’m not going to say they shouldn’t be a little cheaper, but the Pi 5 is kind of a powerhouse compared to older Pis and you have to push for the 16gb of RAM version to make it actually expensive.
Once again the 4gb kit is $140 and with a lightweight Linux distro that’s honestly more than enough for basic desktop life of web browsing and email.
35 dollars in 2012 is 49 dollars now when taking inflation into account. You can get Pi 5 1GB model for 45 usd.