The prices were very low -- if I remember correctly the zero was £4.50 and the zero W was £5.00. I went in looking for a motor so I didn't catch the price of the Pi B+ etc. Sorry!
Pi Zero W includes wlan and bluetooth, and the kit that includes PSU and SD card cost around ~$35.
Stil I agree, its not really comparable. The Pis is mostly learning/teaching tool. I can see using this in a product directly. Something I would grab when I needed something more than an ESP.
Oof, $80 is encroaching on Aliexpress N100 Mini PCs and used "Tiny/Mini/Micro" territory.
I have the original and updated Pi Zero W-- unbelievable bargains at ~$15 but if I needed any horsepower I think I'd rather have an x86_64 so I can run whatever.
The RPi Zero W costs 10.35E. That's more than double the advertised price (I'm ignoring shipping here). It's not a big deal though, I doubt anyone interested in "joining the club" would pass because of the extra 5-6E but the point stands. It's impossible to find the Zero W for the advertised price in many parts of the world.
I get the limitations on manufacturing, costs, margins, etc. But they could just advertise it for 10E, sell it for 10E and actually make a profit that they can use to improve the product, drop prices later, etc. If I end up paying 10E anyway I'd prefer it if the ad didn't tout "Only $5". It's misleading no matter how much I like the company who's doing it.
I'm a big fan of RasPis, but people _always_ understate the real costs.
That TPLink wifi router comes in a case with a (probably shitty but working) power supply and cable, and inbuilt flash memory.
A Pi Zero costs ten quid, but you need to add a case, a power supply, and a micro SD Card. But worst for me, is that they still limit you to buying one at a time, so if your decide "Hell yeah! 5 room wi-fi streamed audio sounds _Awesome!_" You're not only up for fifty quid for the Pi Zeros, but you're gonna spend at something like twice that much again for 5 half-decent power supplies, USB cables for the power supplies, SD cards, and cases, and then you're up for 5 lots of shipping charges because they aren't allowed to sell you 5 Pi Zeros in one order... All of a sudden that "fifty quid project!" has become a £150+ one in five seperate deliveries...
(And unless you don't care too much about the audio quality, both the Pi Zero and the TPLink router will need a better external DAC anyway...)
If you just want one, and you're the sort of person who has usb power supplies, cables, sd cards kicking around doing nothing, and you're not too fussed about having a nice case, sure, you can just order one ten quid Pi Zero plus 3 quid for shipping.
For people who don't have spare micro sd cards, spare usb cables, spare 1+Amp capable usb power supplies, and who're maybe less prepared to have a bare RasPi board powered up and running sitting on their table - $100AUD is about the right expectation to set, yeah.
(I've always got all of that, and I still get grumpy when people talk about the "$5 Pi Zero" - I've never been able to get a bare Pi Zero in my hand for anything less that about $13US which is close to $20AUD...)
Mine runs on a years-old Raspberry Pi Model B Rev 2. A Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ (which has an ethernet port), SD Card and case is about £40 at pihut, that's CAD70
A Zero 2 W with wireless is half that or less including the case, SD Card and power supply.
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