When comparing Raspberry Pi Zero + Wi-Fi dongle vs Raspberry Pi Zero W, the Slant community recommends Raspberry Pi Zero W for most people. In the question“What are the best single-board computers with Wi-Fi support under $10?” Raspberry Pi Zero W is ranked 1st while Raspberry Pi Zero + Wi-Fi dongle is ranked 2nd. The most important reason people chose Raspberry Pi Zero W is:
This is a complete desktop computer with wifi, hdmi, and bluetooth powered by an arm chip. All you need is your existing peripherals, a micro usb dongle, and a sd card to make it run.
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Pros
Pro Large community
It's widely supported and you'll find a lot of resources on how to get whatever you want to do done on Raspberry Pi. It's as of 2014 still the most famous single-board computer (just check eBay).
Pro Good performance for the price
The Raspberry Pi Zero has a 1 GHz ARMv6 CPU and 512MB of RAM.
Pro Supports the Raspberry Pi Foundation
Raspberry Pi Foundation promotes studying computer science in schools.
Pro Very cheap for what it is
This is a complete desktop computer with wifi, hdmi, and bluetooth powered by an arm chip. All you need is your existing peripherals, a micro usb dongle, and a sd card to make it run.
Pro Large community
The Raspberry Pi is backed by a large community of experienced users that are willing to help and has a lot of documentation.
Pro Embedded WiFi antenna
Cons
Con No onboard stoarge
The device has a microSD slot and needs a card to act as storage.
Con Wi-Fi dongle takes up the only peripheral USB port
Pi Zero has 2 USB ports - one for peripherals, the other one for power. Since getting Wi-Fi on the Pi Zero requires a USB dongle that takes up the only peripheral USB port, a USB hub might be needed to attach keyboard and mouse.