It was invented to promote the teaching of basic computing science in schools, but proved so popular it became the best-selling computer ever made in the UK.

The success of the Raspberry Pi over the past seven years has been driven by Do It Yourself computer hobbyists using it for a host of applications at home including building games and robots and making digital music or art.

But although it still looks like a circuit board, the latest version of the computer - the Raspberry Pi 4 - is aiming to take on the biggest computing companies in the world in the home PC market.

The device, which starts at just £34, is capable of driving two independent screens running 4K resolution content and has three times the processing power of its 2016 predecessor.

The credit card-sized computer is designed to be highly customisable so it still has an appeal to computer hobbyists, but can also be bought in a bundle with a mouse, keyboard, SD card, power supply, cables and case for the first time to help recreate the experience of a desktop computer.

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Raspberry Pi’s founder Eben Upton said the updates meant from now on it should be considered as a competitor to traditional desktops.

“This is basically what we’ve been working towards for the entire history of Raspberry Pi. A credible alternative to a regular PC, but at a tenth the cost," he said.

“The vision behind Raspberry Pi 4 is to make a rich multimedia PC experience accessible to everyone. By offering a level of performance suitable for most users we’ve been able to do this at roughly a tenth of the cost of a traditional desktop PC.”

Mr Upton said there would still be some people - such as “hard-core gamers” - for whom the Raspberry Pi would not be an acceptable replacement.

But he added: “For the things most people want to do such as editing documents, searching the web or watching a few videos this will be perfectly fine.”

The development was welcomed by Dr Jeremy Singer, a senior lecturer in computing science at Glasgow University.

He has already used previous versions of the Raspberry Pi for a host of applications at the university - including putting them into ceiling tiles to monitor light levels, background noise levels, Co2 levels, temperature and humidity as part of a wider efficiency drive.

“When it first came out the Raspberry Pi was very much geared towards teaching pupils about coding and hands on computing, but now it has become much more powerful and people are using it for all kinds of different things,” he said.

“This upgrade is increasing the computational power of the kit so it will be as powerful, if not more powerful, than your mobile phone. The amount of memory has increased a lot too so while previous versions were quite restricted, that is no longer the case.

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“Computers have become everyday commodity items rather than luxuries and the idea that you can spend £50 and have your own powerful computer is a very appealing one and certainly capable of doing all the things a more expensive laptop or desktop could do.”

Dr Singer said an interesting aspect of the Raspberry Pi was that it was still a “bare bones” system with consumers having to purchase extra items such as a screen, mouse and keyboard. Even customers buying it as a ready made kit still have to assemble it themselves.

He said: “That is a deliberate and interesting move because it shows computers are not just black boxes, but have different components that are brought together.

“We need people to understand that computers are not magic and not something to be apprehensive about and this is something that people can play with and use without being scared of breaking it.”

Mr Upton created the Raspberry Pi in 2008 while at Cambridge University, originally as an inexpensive tool to teach children how to code.

Over the last 11 years more than 25 million units have been sold to a wide variety of users including computer enthusiasts, academics and businesses, often to monitor environmental factors such as temperature or to control cameras.

The company currently sells six million devices a year, giving it just over two per cent of the global PC market.