The Raspberry Pi Foundation have just announced the availability of their new Raspberry Pi 2. The Raspberry Pi 2 is available for sale right now and is selling for $35 US dollars. The updated board is a huge upgrade from the previous model (Model B+), it will contain a 900MHz quad-core ARMv7 CPU, 1GB of SDRAM and all the new features of the Model B+ including 4 USB ports and Micro SD card compatibility. The Raspberry Pi 2 will be able to run everything the previous versions did, meaning complete compatibility for existing users.
Specifically, the Raspberry Pi 2 is now running an ARMv7 processor which means it can support a whole new range of Operating Systems from Snappy Ubuntu Core and Windows 10 – that’s right, Windows 10! This huge news from the Raspberry Pi Foundation and Microsoft sees the upcoming operating system, Windows 10 being made available for free to the Maker community. While no specific details have been announced, Microsoft says they’ll have more news to share in the next few months. You’ll be able to keep up to date by signing up to the Microsoft Internet of Things Community.
You’ll be able to order the Raspberry Pi 2 right now from authorised resellers such as Element 14 and RS Components. Best thing is, that it still costs only $35 US dollars (around $50 AUD at the time of writing) and offers “up to 6 times the performance”. Depending on what version of Windows 10 is made available for the Raspberry Pi 2, you could have a full PC (excluding screen, keyboard and mouse) for almost the cost of a cheap mobile phone. Exciting times are ahead.
Source: Raspberry Pi Foundation