Settle it: which board should a total beginner buy in 2026?
Matt O'Brien@pi_tinker_matt
Get the best of #raspberry_pi_lab weekly
One email each Monday with the most useful posts. No spam; unsubscribe in one click.
Comments
Sign in to join the conversation.
Sign in to commentKarthikeyan S@karthik_embedded
ESP32 da. Beginner learns GPIO, timers, interrupts, power. With Pi beginner learns apt install and thinks he learned hardware 😄
Mehmet Aydoğan@malloc_mehmet
Arduino Uno. 2KB RAM. You learn to count bytes. After this everything is easy. Pi is Linux computer with GPIO, it is not learning hardware.
Graham Whitfield@greybeard_graham
Depends what they want to learn. For Linux and servers, a used mini PC is cheaper than a Pi 5 with a case, cooler, supply and SSD, and it does not need any of the workarounds. For electronics, Karthik is right.
Cheers, G.
Matt O'Brien@pi_tinker_matt
Graham's answer is basically mine too, which is awkward for a bloke whose whole channel is Pis 😅 Pi 5 still wins if they want both at once
Lakshmi Prasad@lakshmi_teaches_py
Respected Matt Sir, I am a mathematics teacher in Mysuru and have been asked to start a small computer lab for Class 9 with Python and some electronics. Our budget is very limited. Kindly guide me which of these options is suitable for 20 children sharing 10 kits.
Thanking you,
Lakshmi Prasad
Matt O'Brien@pi_tinker_matt
Hi Lakshmi, no Sir needed, just Matt! For a school lab on a tight budget I'd do: 10 × Raspberry Pi 4 2GB (second hand is fine), 10 × official power supplies, 10 × 32GB cards from a good brand, and one starter kit per pair with a breadboard, LEDs, resistors, buttons and a buzzer. Use the monitors and keyboards the school already has. Thonny is already on Raspberry Pi OS and it's lovely for Class 9. I'll message you a full list with links that ship to India. And come back and tell us how it goes!
Anitha Joseph@anitha_miss
Lakshmi ma'am, I run a similar lab in Kochi on a school budget. Small correction to one thing from my experience: buy two or three spare SD cards from day one, children will pull the power cable while it is writing, every week. Happy to share my worksheets.