Raspberry Pi uses a Broadcom ARM processor. It needs very little power

so runs cool – eliminating heat sinks, noisy fans and all.

However, despite the fact that the Pi is impressively powerful for its size and price, it’s certainly no super computer when compared to average, ‘grown up’ computers. The Pi’s 1GB of DDR2 RAM instead of the DDR3 RAM most computers use today and the 900 MHz CPU are far slower compared to the 2.4 GHz CPU’s which are the minimum speed for todays average computers. Furthermore the Pi can only run videos up to 720p resolution and I found that both the browser and the Pi itself can be quite slow at times. As a result, I sometimes found myself becoming slightly impatient with the Pi. 

   In an era where everything is instant and loads at the left click of a mouse, the Pi looks tardy.  But on the plus side, I found that in comparison with standard operating systems (Windows and Mac) Pi’s visually simple user interface (UI) makes it easier to understand and handle by younger users. 

The tiny Raspberry Pi board bristles with connectors. At left is an HDMI

socket for a monitor screen and just right of it a small black 3.5mm headphone jack.

The large block at front is an RJ45 socket for ethernet and to its right sit four USB sockets.

At rear are the pins that accept the audio board's socket. 

Once you get a Pi you need to load the ‘NOOBS’ OS onto your chosen SD card. To learn how to do this I suggest you watch a step by step walkthrough: go to Raspberrypi.org and go to the downloads section then click on NOOBS. 

   The Cirrus Logic audio card drivers also need to be installed after the NOOBS OS;  without the drivers the card won’t work. 

   To install the drivers you will need to visit the element14 website and find the Cirrus Logic audio card then click ‘software download’ and the drivers will automatically install to your computer. 

Unfortunately, you won’t be able to simply copy and paste the software file over. On the same page from which you downloaded the software, there is a user manual and it has instructions on how to install the drivers to your SD card. 

   Once all the software is installed and the Pi is booted up you will have to go through a simple installation process and then the Pi should be ready to run. 

Once you’re in the Pi, navigation is fairly simple, and similar to that of a standard computer running Windows – and using applications such as those in the Pi store is easy.