Raspberry Pi's $5 computer is as powerful as 2005 laptop

Remember the Dell Inspiron 6000? In 2005 the chunky model was at the forefront of PCs and could've set you back a cool $10 0 0. Now the Raspberry Pi Zero is bringing the same level of RAM for just $5, and it fits in your pocket.

The Pi Zero has a 1GHz ARM11 processor and 512 MB of RAM. It has two micro USB ports and mini SD card and HDMI slots. Not too shabby. Raspberry Pi's credit card sized single-board computers were designed by the Raspberry Pi Foundation with the goal of bringing programmable computers within the budget of millions.

The original was launched in February 2012, retailing at $25 and approximately seven million have been sold to date. The new model, which is being manufactured in Wales, runs a version of Linux and can even run Minecraft.

Raspberry Pi's founder Eben Upton said on the company's blog: "Since 2012, millions of people have used a Raspberry Pi to get their first experience of programming, but we still meet people for whom cost remains a barrier to entry. At the start of this year, we began work on an even cheaper Raspberry Pi to help these people take the plunge." The Raspberry Pi can play an important role in the move towards encouraging children to learn to code at school.