Raspberry Pi Zero W(ireless)

Intro

On the 28.02.2017, the fifth birthday of the Raspberry Pi, a new version was released. The Raspberry Pi Zero W. The W stands for wireless and indicates that Wifi and Bluetooth is already integrated on this board. Finally.
The 'old' Raspberry Pi Zero costs about 4£ plus shipping, while the new version costs about 9.60£ plus shipping.

Difference in power consumption

One thing that was on my mind is: does the integrated solution draws more or less power other than attaching external Wifi and Bluetooth.
The solution I found most similar to the configuration on the new Pi Zero W was the HAT from Redbear. It also extends the Pi Zero with the same connectivity as the new one has now.
So I installed the same Version of Raspian on both models (Kernel 4.4, Release Date: 2017-03-02), turned Bluetooth on and connect with active Wifi to my home network.

Pi Zero + Redbear HAT	Pi Zero W
...	...
140-160 mA	130 mA

More expensive or cheaper?

Well, kind of a tricky question, isn't it? On the first sight, you see the same-sized board with identical specs for more than the double of the price. But think about it. If you want to use it, as a streaming-client, a home cloud server, a broker for IoT projects or even a small PC, you need what? Internet connection. So you need a Wifi dongle. And since it wouldn't fit, you also need a OTG adapter. And a small USB hub would be also nice. Oops! That's a lot of extra to buy.

Watch the Pi Zero W

Worth it?

If you are looking for a small single board computer as a replace for a Lunix based desktop computer, you should probably go for the Raspberry Pi 3.
But if you want to buy a Pi Zero anyway, you should go for the version with the integrated connectivity. Because if you are a maker and want to build your own IoT device, a Webserver or even a autonomous robot, you wish earlier or later that you can communicate with your Pi.