CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 with 2.5A Micro USB Power Supply (UL Listed)

If you are reading reviews for Raspberry Pi Kits, I think I know what kind of person you are. The problem with kits, is that if they have more than four parts then at least one of the parts is probably something that you don't need or can't use.The basic parts that you need are:The Raspberry PiA 5v 2.5a or greater power supplyThe video cableA SD or Micro SD chipA USB wifi transmitter receiverA USB keyboardA USB mouseA Raspberry Pi 1B only has two USB ports, so unless you can connect to a switch or router with a LAN cable you can't plug everything in. The Raspberry 2B and 3B have four USB ports, so you can plug in keyboard, mouse, and wifi. The 3B costs more, but it is more powerful. Some applications require less power than the 2B, or even the 1B, and if that's what you are going for fine, but if your application is undefined, then more is better. Get the 3B.The Raspberry Pi itself doesn't use much power, but any thing connected to it that draws current from it, has to be accounted for. In a well defined application, you may be able to use a smaller power supply, but for general use, once again, more is better. Get 5v, at least 2.5 amps, and a USB micro connector.Video Cable. Raspberry Pi kits that have video cables in them have HDMI cables in them. If you are connecting to a television or a monitor with an HDMI input, then all you need is an HDMI cable. AmazonBasic is a good one. I have my Raspberry Pi connected to a nice Dell 20 inch monitor, which has a DVI input, so I got an HDMI to DVI cable. It is AmazonBasic, and I recommend it if your monitor has a DVI input.SD or Micro SD chip. If you have a Raspberry Pi 1B you need the SD chip, not the SD Micro chip. If you have the 2B or 3B, you need the SD micro chip. 8GB is enough, 16GB is plenty. Get a Class 10. If you already have an SD chip, try it, if it is 4GB or bigger, it will probably work. Bigger is still better, but it costs more. Unless you don't care about the cost, don't get a bigger SD chip than 16GB, unless you have a specific application that requires a lot of storage.USB wifi transmitter receiver. Most USB wifi fobs will work with the Raspberry Pi, but some won't. Get one that is sold by somebody whose business is selling Raspberry Pis and accessories, or at least one that specifically says it works with Raspberry Pi. Start by checking your junk drawer. If you have a USB wifi fob, it will probably work. And if it doesn't, trying it won't break anything.If you have a spare USB keyboard and mouse on hand, you are ready to go. If you have to buy one, check out AmazonBasic. They have stuff that is cheap, but that works pretty well.The CanaKit Raspberry Pi 3 with 2.5 power supply is a good "Kit", and a good start to a Raspberry system.

Pros:This SBC needs at least 5 volts and 2 amps, 2.5 amps is better. The power supply that comes with this kit provides that power. If you use another source make sure you use a good USB cable to feed it power.This SBC is rock solid. It runs Chromium browser just fine. I have created a video with it but that is not it's forte. It is best suited for surfing the web and addressing email, or as a hotspot, nas, repeater, piratebox, etc...Cons:Doesn't have a power switch but it only pulls 2 watts or less powering a fan so why turn it off? If you feel you must turn it off you can with the halt command which brings the power usage down to 1 watt or less still powering the fan. Then just remove the power.Other Thoughts:This SBC is sensitive to under-voltage so if you are powering it with a battery make sure it can put out a solid 5 volts and 2 amps or more and that the USB cable is high quality so you don't get too much voltage drop across the cable.If you push it to 100% on all 4 cores it can heat up and start throttling even with the heatsink kit. A 5 volt 40 mm fan running on 3 volts can cool it right down to safe temperatures. You can get the 3 volts from the GPIO.There is no mystery to how this SBC boots an OS. It looks for the fat32 boot partition on the micro-sd card and boots from there. It can either boot an OS in another partition on the micro-sd card or on a USB flash drive, or another storage device. There is no MBR or such, just the boot partition. So, you can copy the files from the partitions of the image you download into the respective partitions on the storage device.Using Linux I use losetup and mount to mount the partitions of the image and then use rsync to copy the files. I am sure there is a way to do it with MS windows but I am not familiar enough with that OS. You can also use dd in Linux but you lose control of the partitions size and locations.Search the web for info about this SBC. There is a lot of projects and how-tos.

I bought this to build a RetroPie gaming emulator, and for that it works wonderfully. I paired it with the Official Raspberry Pi 3 Case - Red/White and it is a sexy little gaming machine.For a basic kit, this is a good way to get a Raspberry Pi 3. Sure the board may only be $35, but I wanted a power supply specifically designed for the Pi 3, which seem to go for about $10. Throw in a couple heatsinks (not sure they're necessary, but they don't hurt anything) and the price seems reasonable.Why get this kit over the $25 more expensive one that includes an SD card and case? Well, I bought one of those for the Pi 2, and it was certainly fine. Ultimately I decided to get this kit for the Pi 3 because ...1. I liked the Official Raspberry Pi 3 Case (and I'm very happy with it) ~ $122. I wanted to get the best SD card available (TheWirecutter.com says that is the Samsung 32GB EVO Plus Class 10) ~ $173. I didn't need another HDMI cable ~ $5So, I paid $29 for case and SD card vs $25 more for the bigger kit. I guess if you don't care which SD card or case you receive, you may as well save a few dollars and get a free HDMI cable. The other kit doesn't specify which SD card you get, although reviews indicate a Kingston, which is respectable. In my experience, the CanaKit case is a good case, but I really like my official case, partly for build quality, partly for sporty looks.