Look out Apple iPhone 4S, the Raspberry Pi will kick it out of the hot seat

Let’s face it – Apple sometimes likes to boast about it’s products hardware being the fastest in the class. While it might seem true to some extent depending on what you use the iDevices for, the founding member of Raspberry Pi, Eben Upton, has stated that the Raspberry Pi should provide at least twice the performance of an iPhone 4S in a wide range of activities. Eben also throws nVidia’s Tegra mobile chip out the window.

Quoted from a interview with Digital Foundry with edits to clarify:

“I was on the team that designed the [Raspberry Pi] graphics core, so I’m a little biased here, but I genuinely believe we have the best mobile GPU team in the world at Broadcom in Cambridge. What’s really striking is how badly [nVidia] Tegra 2 performs relative even to simple APs using licensed Imagination Technologies (TI and Apple) or ARM Mali (Samsung) graphics.”

For the complete story, check out Tom’s Hardware article on the subject. The Raspberry Pi only costs $25 or $35 (depending on model), but with the graphics potiental, it could be a worthy candiate for portable ARM device projects. Some include Kids Ruby, Yoyo Games GameMaker, Python and even XBMC, a open source Windows Media Center replacement.

With the Raspberry Pi almost set for launch, it will be put head to head against our other ARM devices here at Coburn’s Domain. Stay tuned.