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This thread would seem to prove you both right and wrong. Also some of the comments make recommendations on fixes.

Last post on that thread was Wed Nov 28, 2012 8:19 pm
Citing last year's post doesn't substantiate this year's apparent policy.
Also suggesting fixes is not a substitute for quality control.

68 is not very many? http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3686

This thread would seem to prove you both right and wrong. Also some of the comments make recommendations on fixes.

For anyone wondering "where is the fucking source?", it is here:

http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2301&start=50

Post in question

It's just a shame they won't open source the videocore :( I already own one but I won't be buying another (dev-board of any make) until I know it's all foss.

If there's something like that, that you have a specific problem with, it's a good idea to pay attention to what's going on.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/2569

More interesting question is around import duty. I think I read (possibly when last trying to work out where the f*ck my OpenPandora was) that there's different import duties on finished electrical good and components (these being more expensive). Even assuming assembly cost is the same, it means it always costs more to assemble in the UK.

Except that the Raspberry Pi foundation have never been able to point to any of these so-called duties. A question was asked in parliament and the minister replied that nobody in his department had any idea what they were talking about. Bear in mind that the Raspberry Pi foundation is run by engineers and programmers, not by people with a background in navigating import procedures.

A quick search of the UK trade tariff shows that there is no tariff on these sorts of components from any country. VAT applies, but will be the same amount for non-EU imports, EU 'acquisitions' (the technical term for imports within the common market) or UK purchases and only the administration differs. If you set the date back a year or look at other types of ICs you get the same result - no tariff.

I think what happened was after the foundation complained that it couldn't find a suitable UK manufacturer they were approached by someone at the Sony contract manufacturing plant at Pencoed ( near Bridgend ) who had studied the board and calculated they could make it profitably at the foundation's target price.

The Sony plant ( it used to be one of Europe's biggest TV plants ) takes on small production runs for third party designs. They had to introduce a new POP facility to manufacture the Pi there . There is quite a long article about the factory process here.

Here is the story about the half a million Welsh Pi and a summary about move to Wales.

I think what happened was after the foundation complained that it couldn't find a suitable UK manufacturer they were approached by someone at the Sony contract manufacturing plant at Pencoed ( near Bridgend ) who had studied the board and calculated they could make it profitably at the foundation's target price.

The Sony plant ( it used to be one of Europe's biggest TV plants ) takes on small production runs for third party designs. They had to introduce a new POP facility to manufacture the Pi there . There is quite a long article about the factory process here.

Here is the story about the half a million Welsh Pi and a summary about move to Wales.

I think what happened was after the foundation complained that it couldn't find a suitable UK manufacturer they were approached by someone at the Sony contract manufacturing plant at Pencoed ( near Bridgend ) who had studied the board and calculated they could make it profitably at the foundation's target price.

The Sony plant ( it used to be one of Europe's biggest TV plants ) takes on small production runs for third party designs. They had to introduce a new POP facility to manufacture the Pi there . There is quite a long article about the factory process here.

Here is the story about the half a million Welsh Pi and a summary about move to Wales.

I think what happened was after the foundation complained that it couldn't find a suitable UK manufacturer they were approached by someone at the Sony contract manufacturing plant at Pencoed ( near Bridgend ) who had studied the board and calculated they could make it profitably at the foundation's target price.

The Sony plant ( it used to be one of Europe's biggest TV plants ) takes on small production runs for third party designs. They had to introduce a new POP facility to manufacture the Pi there . There is quite a long article about the factory process here.

Here is the story about the half a million Welsh Pi and a summary about move to Wales.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/2569

More interesting question is around import duty. I think I read (possibly when last trying to work out where the f*ck my OpenPandora was) that there's different import duties on finished electrical good and components (these being more expensive). Even assuming assembly cost is the same, it means it always costs more to assemble in the UK.

The Raspberry Pi people made a toy for educational purposes. If you read the About page, you will see two key differences:

1. The Raspberry Pi people have extensive hardware experience, with key figures actually working in the industry. They do their own technical work. They can answer questions about their design. They are selling through reputable distributors. lkcl, on the other hand, is a front-man with no hardware background. He is apparently the sole advocate in the world for a China-based for-profit operation.

2. Raspberry Pi's ultimate goal is to make a small single-board computer to help kids learn programming. lkcl's goals are large and varied, but mostly involve upending industries he knows nothing about, and probably getting rich in the process.

The Raspberry Pi people made a toy for educational purposes. If you read the About page, you will see two key differences:

1. The Raspberry Pi people have extensive hardware experience, with key figures actually working in the industry. They do their own technical work. They can answer questions about their design. They are selling through reputable distributors. lkcl, on the other hand, is a front-man with no hardware background. He is apparently the sole advocate in the world for a China-based for-profit operation.

2. Raspberry Pi's ultimate goal is to make a small single-board computer to help kids learn programming. lkcl's goals are large and varied, but mostly involve upending industries he knows nothing about, and probably getting rich in the process.

I am not saying the product is without merit. I do like the form factor, but right now I have two Raspberry Pis, a BeagleBone, and a pcDuino on my desk (for use in various client projects). Those are just three of the various hobbyist and industrial small ARM based systems out there.

Right now the EOMA-68 is more or less vaporware. Wake me when I can buy one, then we can talk...

Or print out a case following the community's designs, using good old 2-d printing. :)

Thats why Raspberry Pi is a very important tool to help teach coding to kids.

Its cheap, easy and thin.

I think the future of education must have coding as a class.

Minecraft: Pi Edition

I still have a 500 Mhz Pentium III running 24x7 as a network monitor! 10 years of continuous, 24x7 service and it is still chugging along, currently running a 32 bit CentOS 6 distro. It burns less than 20 watts!

A Raspberry Pi could do that job for 1/10 the power consumption and 1/100th the physical space. Your way works, but it isn't the most efficient.

The Model A Raspberry Pi has been available for the last week.

there are no 3d acceleration on the pi at all..

if you're going to troll, at least pick something that's not trivial to refute with a simple google search for your statement above which handily returns a small roundup of graphics as the first result.

here's some more (just to illustrate how poor your trolling attempt was):

http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Architecture-and-Source.png
http://jonmacey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/getting-started-with-egl-on-raspberry.html
http://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/jmacey/GraphicsLib/piNGL/index.html

there are no 3d acceleration on the pi at all..

if you're going to troll, at least pick something that's not trivial to refute with a simple google search for your statement above which handily returns a small roundup of graphics as the first result.

here's some more (just to illustrate how poor your trolling attempt was):

http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Architecture-and-Source.png
http://jonmacey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/getting-started-with-egl-on-raspberry.html
http://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/jmacey/GraphicsLib/piNGL/index.html

I wonder why they picked that name since it is already what the Raspberry PI's version of Debian [Raspbian] is called.

http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads

From the webpage above
Raspbian “wheezy”

If you’re just starting out, this is the image we recommend you use. It’s a reference root filesystem from Alex and Dom, based on the Raspbian optimised version of Debian, and containing LXDE, Midori, development tools and example source code for multimedia functions.

Even though he is a self-starter ...

Okay, awesome! What you should do is get him a raspberry pi then pick up an HDMI cable, a cheap keyboard and cheap mouse (both of which should be wired as it lags to offload wireless processing to the pi) from monoprice. Right now, B&H Video has a deal where you get 2 x 16GB cards for $15 if you add two of these to your cart with free shipping. Okay, I've actually already bought several sets of this stuff from these exact same suppliers and handed them off to a bunch of kids that are loving them right now. So that's all legit. You'll need to have a TV or monitor with an HDMI in and it helps if you have a cheap webcam (one of the tutorials I'm gonna mention uses it). You'll also need a second computer with a way to access SD flash cards (pick up a USB toaster for $5 if you don't have this)> Optional would be male-to-female wires like these with any breadboard so he can tinker with making his own stuff -- you'll probably have to drop more cash on more electronic devices to interface with it if you go this route though.

Next, you might consider this book but I prefer this one more. Okay then you send your kid here to get the hard float raspbian wheezy and you tell him how to figure out how to get it on the flash card to boot on the pi. There's a wiki for all this stuff. Then you send him here and make him do these tutorials. Then you make him read all the issues of the MagPi. And if he's smart enough, you buy him some more peripherals. There should be a lot more tutorials coming out for this device.

Once he has all that stuff, you go to the liquor store. Now, the liquor stores around my house sell a lot of types of vodkas and Absolut is great but I've found that Sobieski satiates me just as well. It's made from this Dankowski rye that makes great gimlets. Try to buy a case of handles and haggle him down to ~$13 a handle (that stuff is really cheap). Then you go to the store and you get some of that Real Lime lime juice. Not the key lime shit, the actual lime juice. You're gonna need a decent blender because this thing is gonna be working all summer long. Also, a bag of hazelnuts. Go home and fill a cup to the top with ice and put in about one finger of lime juice. Fill the rest with Sobieski. Blend that shit up, garnish with a couple crushed hazelnuts to really dry that shit out and kick back. Trust me, your kid is going to come and talk to you about python and apt-get and registers and you are not going to want to have to deal with that. So just get good and fucking faced in the sun all summer long. Your kid will thank you for staying out of his hair. A summer of riproarin' fall down drunk? You can thank me later.

Hey Luc, why not drop round the Raspberry Pi forum and tell them about this. As you know they are a friendly bunch of guys and will want to offer you their congratulations.

For the benefit of those who don't realize it, this is sarcasm. Read this and see both Eben and Liz Upton at their "charming" best and you'll understand: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/2221

It's a pity the mainstream media haven't mentioned these sorts of events which have occurred numerous times on their forums. The Raspberry Pi Foundation and the Raspberry Pi apologists ought to brace themselves though, the PR bubble and hype surrounding the Pi won't last forever. Eventually reality will prevail.

While there have been quality control problems recently which the Raspberry Pi Foundation has downplayed the USB issues are inherently a result of the notorious USB controller in the BCM2835 SoC that the Pi uses. They've actually just hired a Broadcom employee full-time now to address these problems after many months of complaints, see this thread: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=30764&p=270951

They are long overdue in taking this issue seriously but better late than never. Hopefully they'll have some success but I would be extremely surprised if the isochronous transfer problems are ever solved.

How is plugging a bunch of peripherals into an antiquated ARM board "about computer science"? If that's computer science then your average sweatshop peon must be Alan Turing.

From the About us on the raspberry pi website. http://www.raspberrypi.org/about

"The idea behind a tiny and cheap computer for kids came in 2006, when Eben Upton and his colleagues at the University of Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory, including Rob Mullins, Jack Lang and Alan Mycroft, became concerned about the year-on-year decline in the numbers and skills levels of the A Level students applying to read Computer Science in each academic year. From a situation in the 1990s where most of the kids applying were coming to interview as experienced hobbyist programmers, the landscape in the 2000s was very different; a typical applicant might only have done a little web design.

Something had changed the way kids were interacting with computers. A number of problems were identified: the colonisation of the ICT curriculum with lessons on using Word and Excel, or writing webpages; the end of the dot-com boom; and the rise of the home PC and games console to replace the Amigas, BBC Micros, Spectrum ZX and Commodore 64 machines that people of an earlier generation learned to program on."

The Gertboard includes an ATmega328p which can be programmed from the Raspberry Pi via putty. It includes 12 LEDs, a motor controller, A/D and D/A converters, switches, and other components.

How about a giant Raspberry Pi-powered etch-a-sketch?

The video isn't very good, and it's not giant, but: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/3046

Datasheet: http://www.raspberrypi.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/BCM2835-ARM-Peripherals.pdf

More: http://elinux.org/RPi_Documentation

You didn't try very hard, did you? The datasheet has been available for almost a year.

As for programmability, which is what actually matters, Mali 400 has no open source driver except some reverse-engineered garbage. The GPU on the Pi does, and it's code from the manufacturer.

No it doesn't, they just made the source of a message passing interface available, i.e. it's just a shim, not an actual driver. See here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/2221 and http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIxNDk

Well sure, but they'd need a computer with the bomb to make it work - hey, they could use one of those ever-so-inexpensive Raspberry Pi computers... We need embedded computer control laws (like Pseudophed control laws) to try and stop such harmful devices!

Recent revisions of the RasPi board have improved the power problems substantially.

Not really. They've just fixed the idiotic voltage regulator error with the LAN9512 chip (see http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=14489) and removed the USB polyfuses. The instability problems the Pi has with power supplies which output a low but still within USB specification voltage, such as 4.8 volts, are still present.

The USB revision means that certain devices can now be successfully powered directly from the USB ports on the Pi, whereas before they would malfunction if this was attempted. However, an unfortunate side effect of this change is that merely hotplugging a USB device into a revised Pi can be enough to reset or crash it.

Power problems aren't the only kind on the RasPi though. Probably the biggest problem is the broken USB handling. The USB controller on that particular Broadcom SoC device has severe limitations and makes invalid assumptions about the Linux kernel, and that cannot be fixed because it's hardwired in the device silicon. As a result, even the latest board revisions have major USB problems that make the board unusable for certain applications.

Spot on. The Raspberry Pi Foundation still believe this problem can be fixed though, judging from the comment Foundation representative jamesh made in this thread: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=23053. I think he's kidding himself, especially when it's considered that the USB issues jamesh apparently considers solved have just been worked around, not truly fixed.

Recent revisions of the RasPi board have improved the power problems substantially.

Not really. They've just fixed the idiotic voltage regulator error with the LAN9512 chip (see http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=14489) and removed the USB polyfuses. The instability problems the Pi has with power supplies which output a low but still within USB specification voltage, such as 4.8 volts, are still present.

The USB revision means that certain devices can now be successfully powered directly from the USB ports on the Pi, whereas before they would malfunction if this was attempted. However, an unfortunate side effect of this change is that merely hotplugging a USB device into a revised Pi can be enough to reset or crash it.

Power problems aren't the only kind on the RasPi though. Probably the biggest problem is the broken USB handling. The USB controller on that particular Broadcom SoC device has severe limitations and makes invalid assumptions about the Linux kernel, and that cannot be fixed because it's hardwired in the device silicon. As a result, even the latest board revisions have major USB problems that make the board unusable for certain applications.

Spot on. The Raspberry Pi Foundation still believe this problem can be fixed though, judging from the comment Foundation representative jamesh made in this thread: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=23053. I think he's kidding himself, especially when it's considered that the USB issues jamesh apparently considers solved have just been worked around, not truly fixed.

Only the early Pi's were built in China. The newest models are manufactured in a Sony factory in the UK, and I believe that very few if any are still manufactured in China.

You are wrong. A very significant number are currently made in at least two factories in China. Look at what Raspberry Pi Foundation representatives jamesh and liz say in these threads: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=20388 and http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=23248 and http://raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=24057

In fact, the Pi Foundation has stated numerous times that they wanted the Pi to be manufactured in the UK from the start, but at the time this was impossible when considering the necessary quality and fixed selling price with little margin. Thanks to the Sony deal they are now able to do this.

Yes, but have they ever said they wanted to manufacture in the UK exclusively? They may have done, but I haven't heard this.

I have a first revision Pi from China, and it works flawlessly. I even applied the highest stock overclock (1GHz) and it's totally stable without any additional cooling.

But have you stress tested it for at least 24 hours by generating a load which is both CPU and GPU heavy? This is essential, you won''t know whether you have a stable configuration or not until you do this. I get the feeling that many people who think they have a "totally stable" Pi actually don't. Some crashes or other malfunctions don't occur until you have been properly stress testing for hours. Also, watch out for overclocking induced SD card corruption.

Also, note that many of the user problems are due to sub-standard power supplies or using USB devices which draw too much power from the USB ports.

Some of these "sub-standard" power supplies that have problems powering the Pi aren't actually sub-standard, i.e. they maintain the USB standard 5 volts ±5% (4.75 to 5.25 volts) when measured at both of the test points on the Pi's PCB while it is under full load. The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from this fact is that it's the design of the Raspberry Pi itself which is sub-standard, which shouldn't come as a surprise at this point.

Remember, the Pi does not come with one, so the user has to supply one or buy a third party power supply. The quality of these vary widely. I purchased one that was pre-tested with the Pi and offered directly by the UK distributor and like I mentioned, I've had zero problems.

Unfortunately even this hasn't guaranteed success. I know of multiple cases where power supplies bought as part of a Raspberry Pi bundle have been unable to properly power it.

Only the early Pi's were built in China. The newest models are manufactured in a Sony factory in the UK, and I believe that very few if any are still manufactured in China.

You are wrong. A very significant number are currently made in at least two factories in China. Look at what Raspberry Pi Foundation representatives jamesh and liz say in these threads: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=20388 and http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=23248 and http://raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=24057

In fact, the Pi Foundation has stated numerous times that they wanted the Pi to be manufactured in the UK from the start, but at the time this was impossible when considering the necessary quality and fixed selling price with little margin. Thanks to the Sony deal they are now able to do this.

Yes, but have they ever said they wanted to manufacture in the UK exclusively? They may have done, but I haven't heard this.

I have a first revision Pi from China, and it works flawlessly. I even applied the highest stock overclock (1GHz) and it's totally stable without any additional cooling.

But have you stress tested it for at least 24 hours by generating a load which is both CPU and GPU heavy? This is essential, you won''t know whether you have a stable configuration or not until you do this. I get the feeling that many people who think they have a "totally stable" Pi actually don't. Some crashes or other malfunctions don't occur until you have been properly stress testing for hours. Also, watch out for overclocking induced SD card corruption.

Also, note that many of the user problems are due to sub-standard power supplies or using USB devices which draw too much power from the USB ports.

Some of these "sub-standard" power supplies that have problems powering the Pi aren't actually sub-standard, i.e. they maintain the USB standard 5 volts ±5% (4.75 to 5.25 volts) when measured at both of the test points on the Pi's PCB while it is under full load. The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from this fact is that it's the design of the Raspberry Pi itself which is sub-standard, which shouldn't come as a surprise at this point.

Remember, the Pi does not come with one, so the user has to supply one or buy a third party power supply. The quality of these vary widely. I purchased one that was pre-tested with the Pi and offered directly by the UK distributor and like I mentioned, I've had zero problems.

Unfortunately even this hasn't guaranteed success. I know of multiple cases where power supplies bought as part of a Raspberry Pi bundle have been unable to properly power it.

Only the early Pi's were built in China. The newest models are manufactured in a Sony factory in the UK, and I believe that very few if any are still manufactured in China.

You are wrong. A very significant number are currently made in at least two factories in China. Look at what Raspberry Pi Foundation representatives jamesh and liz say in these threads: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=20388 and http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=23248 and http://raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=63&t=24057

In fact, the Pi Foundation has stated numerous times that they wanted the Pi to be manufactured in the UK from the start, but at the time this was impossible when considering the necessary quality and fixed selling price with little margin. Thanks to the Sony deal they are now able to do this.

Yes, but have they ever said they wanted to manufacture in the UK exclusively? They may have done, but I haven't heard this.

I have a first revision Pi from China, and it works flawlessly. I even applied the highest stock overclock (1GHz) and it's totally stable without any additional cooling.

But have you stress tested it for at least 24 hours by generating a load which is both CPU and GPU heavy? This is essential, you won''t know whether you have a stable configuration or not until you do this. I get the feeling that many people who think they have a "totally stable" Pi actually don't. Some crashes or other malfunctions don't occur until you have been properly stress testing for hours. Also, watch out for overclocking induced SD card corruption.

Also, note that many of the user problems are due to sub-standard power supplies or using USB devices which draw too much power from the USB ports.

Some of these "sub-standard" power supplies that have problems powering the Pi aren't actually sub-standard, i.e. they maintain the USB standard 5 volts ±5% (4.75 to 5.25 volts) when measured at both of the test points on the Pi's PCB while it is under full load. The only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from this fact is that it's the design of the Raspberry Pi itself which is sub-standard, which shouldn't come as a surprise at this point.

Remember, the Pi does not come with one, so the user has to supply one or buy a third party power supply. The quality of these vary widely. I purchased one that was pre-tested with the Pi and offered directly by the UK distributor and like I mentioned, I've had zero problems.

Unfortunately even this hasn't guaranteed success. I know of multiple cases where power supplies bought as part of a Raspberry Pi bundle have been unable to properly power it.

This isn't true. The Raspberry Pi is currently being manufactured Sony's UK factory in Pencoed, Wales AND in China.

It appears that the number of Raspberry Pi's shipped faulty appears to have significantly increased in the last month or so with one report on the forums from someone who claims that they recently received three faulty Pi's out of ten and another from a person who claims both of theirs are faulty. These reports have been described by Raspberry Pi Foundation representative who posts on their forums as jamesh as "statistically insignificant". This is the same person who incorrectly claimed in August that the Raspberry Pi was still in beta.

There have also been recent reports of poor packaging with the damaged PCB unsecured and rattling around inside, solder bridges between header pins causing constant rebooting as well as multiple instances where PCB holes have been inconsistently filled with solder. See here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=22473 and http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=24571

This isn't true. The Raspberry Pi is currently being manufactured Sony's UK factory in Pencoed, Wales AND in China.

It appears that the number of Raspberry Pi's shipped faulty appears to have significantly increased in the last month or so with one report on the forums from someone who claims that they recently received three faulty Pi's out of ten and another from a person who claims both of theirs are faulty. These reports have been described by Raspberry Pi Foundation representative who posts on their forums as jamesh as "statistically insignificant". This is the same person who incorrectly claimed in August that the Raspberry Pi was still in beta.

There have also been recent reports of poor packaging with the damaged PCB unsecured and rattling around inside, solder bridges between header pins causing constant rebooting as well as multiple instances where PCB holes have been inconsistently filled with solder. See here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=22473 and http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=24571

It is the primary goal of the RaspberryPi.

The idea behind a tiny and cheap computer for kids....

http://www.raspberrypi.org/about

dunno about how long it'll take _using_ the Pi ... but I wasn't planning on using that as the system doing the compiling (I mean, someone somewhere had to compile the OS that are available for download)...

Then again, a Beowulf Cluster of them would be interesting...

The system is brand new and it seems the app store service provider still has some details to work out about the licensing.

Liz, the head of the Raspbery Pi foundation, is aware of the issue and has already directly addressed it by saying there will be a fix in place by tomorrow to allow the app publishers to properly list the license their software is offered under.

For reference, here is Liz's statement to that effect:
http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/2768#comment-37660

Low-cost computer, not general-purpose desktop-replacement.

First statement on the FAQ:

It’s a capable little PC which can be used for many of the things that your desktop PC does, like spreadsheets, word-processing and games. It also plays high-definition video.

It's the newer model with 512MB RAM and screw holes (whoever fucked that up in the first place... it's mind boggling)... but it's not made in the UK. Not sure what that's about, I thought they were supposed to be now.

Some of them are, some of them aren't. There have been multiple reports of the recently Chinese manufactured Pi's having questionable soldering and reliability problems. See here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=22473 and http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=24571

It's the newer model with 512MB RAM and screw holes (whoever fucked that up in the first place... it's mind boggling)... but it's not made in the UK. Not sure what that's about, I thought they were supposed to be now.

Some of them are, some of them aren't. There have been multiple reports of the recently Chinese manufactured Pi's having questionable soldering and reliability problems. See here: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=22473 and http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=24571

...except it wasn't.

The goal was to stop the erosion in what is perceived to be "computer skills" and interest in computer science as computing in UK schools had become about "Office" and Consumer computing had become "electronics". In fact the cheap part is in response to computers being expensive and arcane. [from http://www.raspberrypi.org/about%5D

I personally am convinced that the costs involved in raising the costs slightly to increase "memory" not anything else is incredibly wise. I have used GNU/Linux on little memory and its not fun...and Android seems to have similar requirements.

If it's only one of five, it would be extremely interesting for RPi team they are actively working on solutions for usb problems (there were several found and some corrected already). Could you help them and write your experiences in this thread?

I think this: post from Pi is a better "walk-through", as it includes descriptions as well as pictures.

But, that's just me.

From TFA only 2 bad boards so far? http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=20657 - see this problem on as detailed on rpi site.

It also lacks HDMI....

Got to wonder how these crazy fools plugged HDMI into it then: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=164893. And the picture from TFA sure as hell seems to have an HDMI port sitting on the side there.