Rasberry Pi 3 Model B

This is actually a single board computer, although i've put it under motherboards as you have to buy the case, power supply and HDMI lead seperately and setup an Operating Sytem onto the main drive (Simply a Micro-SD card) yourself. Which is easy for some and not so for others.

Micro-SD cards are so cheap you can have several setups on different cards at little cost.

Before i go on, the specs of this thing are:

A 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU

802.11n Wireless LAN

Bluetooth 4.1

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE)

1GB RAM

4 USB ports

40 GPIO pins (for connecting hardware, electronics projects etc)

Full HDMI port

Ethernet port

Combined 3.5mm audio jack and composite video

Camera interface (CSI)

Display interface (DSI)

Micro SD card slot (now push-pull rather than push-push)

VideoCore IV 3D graphics core

I also bought the official case and power supply to make an all in one unit.

Theres plenty of resources online, and i wanted something simple to start with. I used NOOBS (New Out Of Box Software) available online which is an easy way to setup giving several of the most popular OS setups. I simply copied this over to my Micro-SD and then put the Micro-SD card into my RPi. I turned it on for a list of operating system options. I wanted Dual boot options for both a rasbian (Linux based OS similar to windows) based system (for browsing the web etc) and a KODI (Media Center)based system using Add-ons for viewing media I own and from the web. I ticked both on the easy setup screen and it installed in a minute if not seconds. I rebooted the system and had the choice to boot into either OS. Very easy.

Now it does everything a Smart TV can do. in minutes, for less than £70 total spent. Awesome. Im very happy with this, there lots of possibilities it can be used for, and plenty of resources on the internet, and the whole thing fits in the palm of my hand. I would recomend this as a basic PC for browsing the web and videos etc or as a media center for your TV or both as I have it. Theres also the bonus of being a fun toy to play with if youre a bit nerdy like me. ive setup a seperate Micro-SD card with RetroPie. its a single interface where you can browse all your retro-game ROMs in one place and each game will open in its respective emulator. It is a little tricky to setup but well worth it. Its had quite a knocking around and playing with since january, the case has been trodden on and its still good and working. apparently the manufacturer encourages people who overclock the thing. I dont know if that is true or not. I have no idea how the processor stays cool. Overall This is an excellent buy Around £35. You have to get the other bits seperately depending on what you are making. Pure Awsomeness for hobbyists and nerds.(Its law that you only download ROMs of games that you actually own)