Review: Raspberry Pi 2 Model B - A $35 Computer on Windows 10

Introduction

Imagine a $35 minicomputer that runs Windows 10? Unbelievable it may sound however a low-power Raspberry Pi development platform from Raspberry Pi Foundation has been leaked out by The Register. The new Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, will come for same price but with an upgraded components.

Getting to know about Raspberry Pi 2 Model B

The model sports a Broadcom BCM2836 SoC that comes with four ARM Cortex A7 cores. It’s surely a significant improvement as earlier models were mostly single-core general-purpose application processor. We may assume that the performance will increase 6 folds but that’s on paper as most of applications will not put strain on system by utilizing all its core.

Build & Quality

Some of the USP of this model is as follows:
RAM: The Raspberry Pi 2 will arrive with 1GB of RAM

Ports: HDMI 1.4 output, 3.5mm composite video and stereo audio output, four USB 2.0 ports, microSD slot, 10/100 Ethernet port, Micro-USB power port, and 40-pin IO layout.
Storage: The microSD card has been integrated to make it sturdier

Power:  The amount of power you would be saving will be in the region of 0.5W to 1W, taking the board itself down to 3W.

OS: Microsoft have recently declared that the Raspberry Pi 2 will be able to run a version of Windows 10 along with associated services.This is in line with Microsoft's Windows Developer Program for IoT(Internet of Things) which targets to bring Windows to ultra-low-powered devices. Infact Windows 10 will be available for free for the Raspberry Pi.

Price: The Raspberry Pi 2 will be purchased from here

General Observation & Verdict

A computing device for $35 is a welcome launch. It could play a huge impact in field of education especially in poor African & Asian countries who do not have access to basic computing facilities. The prices can be reduced further if mass production of computing devices are done. We would be betting very high on this incredible launch. It’s clearly a winner here.

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