Catalogue

The official RP2040 board — dual-core, and unusually well documented for the price. Its distinguishing feature is PIO: programmable state machines that generate or capture timing-critical signals in hardware, so driving LED strips or a bit-banged protocol does not cost you the main CPU. Runs MicroPython or C. Ships with no headers soldered, and 3.3 V GPIO that are not 5 V tolerant. If you need Wi-Fi, you want the Pico W, not this.

An Arm Cortex-M3 board for when an AVR runs out of speed or peripherals. Considerably more capable than an Uno for the money, and the usual step up for motor control, signal work, or anything needing real timers. Two well-known quirks of this board: many clones ship with the wrong USB pull-up resistor fitted, so USB may not enumerate until it is changed, and there is no USB bootloader out of the box — most people program it with an ST-Link V2 through the SWD header. Budget for an ST-Link if you do not have one.