The Raspberry Pi Zero W

If we were looking for a smaller-sized version of the Raspberry Pi, we could instead opt for the Raspberry Pi Zero W. The W stands for wireless, as the Raspberry Pi Zero W has built-in Wi-Fi. The following is an annotated photo of the Raspberry Pi Zero W:

The Raspberry Pi Zero W model costs around $10. There is also Raspberry Pi Zero, without the W, which costs around $5, but this does not have built-in Wi-Fi, which makes it very difficult to connect it to the internet. The Raspberry Pi Zero W, which was released in 2017, is basically an updated version of the Raspberry Pi Zero, released in 2015.

Later on in this book, when we design our robot, we will learn how to upload a program wirelessly to our Raspberry Pi from a laptop via a Wi-Fi network. If you opt to purchase the smaller version of Raspberry Pi, I recommend that you go with Raspberry Pi Zero W instead of Raspberry Pi Zero, for ease of use.

The Raspberry Pi Zero W has a couple of disadvantages, due to its small size. Firstly, it's a bit slower than the Raspberry Pi 3B+. Secondly, if we want to use it as a minicomputer, we would need to purchase different extensions to connect peripherals such as a keyboard, a mouse, or a monitor. If we are going to use the Raspberry Pi Zero W for building electronics and robotics projects, however, we don't need to worry about this drawback. Later on in this book, we will learn how to connect the Raspberry Pi Zero W to a laptop via Wi-Fi and how to use the laptop to control it as well. 

The specifications of the Raspberry Pi Zero W are as follows:

• A Broadcom ARM11 1 GHz processor
• 512 MB RAM
• A Broadcom VideoCore GPU
• Bluetooth 4.0
• Dual-band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi
• Storage with a microSD card via a microSD slot
• 40 programmable GPIO pins
• A mini HDMI port
• The Camera Serial Interface (CSI), used for connecting the Raspberry Pi Camera directly to the Raspberry Pi