The credit card-sized PC can finally capture photos or videos

Feb 12, 2013 12:00 GMT  ·  By

The Raspberry Pi is a very versatile miniature personal computer, with its ARM processor and Linux OS, but there are some things it cannot do, and the Raspberry Pi foundation is doing its best to eliminate those limitations.

The latest move on the part of Raspberry Pi is very curious. Not so much because of the idea behind the move but because of its execution.

As revealed in a blog post, Raspberry Pi has prepared an add-on camera meant to be connected to the computer itself.

We say the execution is curious because the camera is as expensive, on its own, as the mini PC itself.

While the Model B sells for $35 / 35 Euro, the Model A that only got launched earlier this month (February 2012), is priced at the same $25 / 25 Euro as the new camera.

Then again, image sensors aren't exactly the cheapest thing in the block, and the foundation did do its best to make it small enough to go well with the Linux computer.

For those seeking details, the Raspberry Pi measures 20 x 25 x 25 mm (0.78 x 0.98 x 0.98 inches) and has a 5-megapixel sensor, which itself measures 8 x 8 x 5 mm / 0.31 x 0.31 x 0.19 inches.

Unfortunately, there is no ETA (estimated time of arrival).

"This is the final hardware; we’ve been working on tuning (Gert tells me that picture quality is 'pretty good' at the moment, but we’re hoping to get it to 'bleeding marvelous' before we release the hardware), and there is some work to do on the drivers, but everything’s looking pretty peachy for the moment," Raspberry Pi's Liz Upton stated in the blog post found here.

"I don’t have a release date for you yet, but we’re probably at least a month away (and possibly more) from being able to sell these at the moment."