Raspberry Pi 2 brings improved hardware, Win 10 support, and more

In 2012 the first iteration of Raspberry Pi arrived on scene, giving us an ultra-tiny and ultra-affordable mini-computer that had potential that was limited only by the owner’s imagination. Since then, there have been revisions to the original that have bumped up the RAM or added more ports, but for the single core 700 MHz ARMv6 processor has remained the same. Thankfully, a massive upgrade has now been announced, dubbed the Raspberry Pi 2.

Set to sell at the same $35 price tag as the original, the Pi 2 offers a ARMv7 quad-core processor at 900MHz and is coupled with 1GB of RAM. The result is an upgrade that is said to offer about 6x better performance than its predecessor. Even better, it is almost completely compatible with any accessories and applications made to work with the original, though some of the edge cases reportedly may need to be tweaked in order to work.

As for the OSes that will play nicely with the Pi 2? While the older hardware limited the number of OSes that would work with the Pi, its successor is said to be handle both Ubuntu and even Windows 10. While we’d expect Ubuntu to be free, interestingly enough Microsoft has also partnered up to offer a free version of Windows 10 that will play nicely with the Pi 2’s ARM-based hardware. Few details on Windows 10 for Pi have been revealed just yet, though Microsoft says it will share more about the effort in the months to come. Beyond this, it’s pretty likely a number of Linux and Unix-like operating systems will also end up ported to the Pi 2, and we can also likely expect Android ROMs to surface. While the older Raspberry Pi did technically have Android ROMs for it, the limited hardware resulted in a very poor experience. Hopefully things are a bit smoother this time around.

So when exactly will we be able to get our hands on the Raspberry Pi 2? Right now actually! The device is available through various Raspberry Pi partners as we speak. Of course we wouldn’t be too surprised if demand is high enough that they become hard to get at first, so we’d act sooner rather than later if you don’t want to wait.

For more details on what to expect from the Raspberry Pi, be sure to check out the Raspberry Pi.org website.