Tom’s Hardware Best RP2040 Boards 2021 #RP2040 @tomshardware

Tom’s Hardware continues to evaluate microcontroller boards powered by the Raspberry Pi RP2040. They currently list their 10 best boards in this week’s lineup:

While Raspberry Pi has its own RP2040-powered board in the Raspberry Pi Pico, there are now more than a dozen, third-party solutions that offer improvements which range from smaller sizes to built-in Wi-Fi, more storage or a lot of additional outputs. There are even RP2040-powered keypads.

To help you choose, we’ve listed the best RP2040 boards below. These boards can be used for everything from general learning to building Wi-Fi connected robots to implementing basic A.I.

Not in any order:

  1. Raspberry Pi Pico – $4 Dual core Arm microcontroller
  2. Adafruit Feather RP2040 – The Gold Standard of ‘Pi Silicon’
  3. Cytron Maker Pi Pico – The ideal way to build your Raspberry Pi Pico projects
  4. Adafruit QT Py RP2040 – A tiny board for great projects
  5. Pimoroni Tiny 2040 – First third-party, RP2040 board offers features the Pico doesn’t have.
  6. Pimoroni Pico Lipo – Pico Pinout with Plenty of Extras
  7. Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect – An Arduino with the heart of a Pi
  8. Adafruit ItsyBitsy RP2040 – A Surprising Compromise
  9. Pimoroni Keybow 2040 – Programmable Keyboard with Pi Silicon Inside
  10. Sparkfun Pro Micro – All the features you need without wasting a millimeter

See the full review here


Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards

Join Adafruit on Mastodon

Adafruit is on Mastodon, join in! adafruit.com/mastodon

Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.

Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.

Join us every Wednesday night at 8pm ET for Ask an Engineer!

Join over 36,000+ makers on Adafruit’s Discord channels and be part of the community! http://adafru.it/discord

CircuitPython – The easiest way to program microcontrollers – CircuitPython.org


Maker Business — Making sure the CHIPS act isn’t just crumbs

Wearables — And now a word on laser ettiquette

Electronics — Capacitor ESR

Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 8.1.0 and 8.2.0-beta0 out and so much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi

Adafruit IoT Monthly — Guardian Robot, Weather-wise Umbrella Stand, and more!

Microsoft MakeCode — MakeCode Thank You!

EYE on NPI — Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey

New Products – Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! — New Products 5/31/23 Feat. Adafruit NeoDriver – I2C to NeoPixel Driver Board – Stemma QT!

Get the only spam-free daily newsletter about wearables, running a "maker business", electronic tips and more! Subscribe at AdafruitDaily.com !



No Comments

No comments yet.

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.