This #MagPiMonday, The MagPi editor Lucy Hattersley talks about watching our newest board come alive in front of her very eyes.

Watching Raspberry Pi 5 come to life was an incredible process. From hearing about the initial designs, to seeing the problem-solving, and hearing clever solutions proposed by the incredible design team.

On our part, there was the stress of making sure everything was ready for launch. And the fear of being the one to accidentally leak it and ruin the surprise for everyone. It’s been a real eye-opener.

It’s not really real until this point though. When it launches and gets into the hands of our readers, and they start to build stuff with it: that’s when Raspberry Pi 5 becomes a real product. 

So, what are we all to do with this super-fast, packed-with-new-features, and ringing and singing full of bells-and-whistles new computer?

Where to start?

Like many new Raspberry Pi 5 owners, my first port of call was Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm. This is now available for download and offers a vast increase in speed. I’ve also been testing out the advances in retro gaming (expect a big feature on this soon). Early reports suggest a big leap forward for console support along the lines of the PlayStation and GameCube era. Cloud Gaming from Games Pass is also an incredible experience (and a whole lot cheaper than buying an Xbox Series X).

We’re also busy looking at the dual camera support and stereographic photography for 3D images. And, we’ve mooted the idea of using two small screens for creating a virtual reality option (although this is very much in the ideas stage).

Machine learning is another area where we’re very keen to see what advantages the new, much faster CPU offers. We’re waiting on an update to TensorFlow Lite to get things working, and are going to be all over image recognition projects.

We’re also waiting on the M.2 drive, at which point we will be turning Raspberry Pi 5 into a server. So, there’s lots to talk about in the coming months!

Over to you!

That’s just the start! What we’re really looking forward to is what you all make with Raspberry Pi 5. Our readers always surprise us with the incredible things they make with Raspberry Pi products. Whether it’s live-action RGB lighting in a pole dancing club, automatic weeding machines for Japanese gardens, retro equipment repairs, or monitoring animals in the wild: the uses for Raspberry Pi are wildly varied.

I was reminded of this while reading through our Handbook 2024. This collects all the best community projects, tutorials, and kits from the last year. It’s a tour-de-force of the best The MagPi readership has to offer – which is an incredible amount of variety and cleverness.

I really can’t wait to see what you all make with Raspberry Pi 5. Here’s to 2024, and another year of Raspberry Pi-goodness.