27 ms·

Turbocharged Raspberry Pi 2 unleashed

573 points by mmastrac 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
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nathan_f77 12y ago
Awesome!! I just wish they would release one with onboard Wifi instead of ethernet. I have no statistics to back this up, but I'm pretty sure that USB Wifi adapters would be the most common accessory.
- chj 12y ago
  It'd be great to have wifi on board, but ethernet is still important.
- sdenton4 12y ago
  I use the onboard ethernet pretty constantly, mainly because I find the wireless to be finicky and hard to troubleshoot when you're running a headless setup. I can always plug in an ethernet cable, though...
  - gorgas 12y ago
    Agree. However Finally I was able to keep an uptime greater than 2 months on my Pi by using a wifi dongle and a bunch of cron scripts to keep alive the connection when my router reboots or the dongle 'freezes' which seems is a common issue when using RPi of any kind :(
    - gcb0 12y ago
      that's probably a bad dongle. i connect my htpc via a Wi-Fi USB dongle as well. it runs both Linux and windows 7. and despite the os and drivers one model always hang after a day or so. another one, different model from same brand is online for months at a time. it's mostly badly designed/tested hardware.
      - gorgas 12y ago
        I was expecting a answer like "my dongle X just works on the Pi" :-) I do not doubt it is a problem with the hardware or the drivers, I just say it is a common problem with many dongle vendors specially in the Pi. I know I could buy a RPi-certified dongle, but I do not like wasting hardware if I can fix it just with a few scripts. No offense :)
        TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
        WiFi on the Pi 'just doesn't work.' You can get it working for a while, but it's nowhere near the reliability of standard domestic WiFi. I've built various sensor/hardware projects and tried various dongles, and I've always had to switch back to a cabled connection.
    - StavrosK 12y ago
      I had that issue as well, where it would freeze if it transferred lots of data (as in, a large number of files in a dir would freeze it when doing ls on the terminal), and the problems went away with a higher-amperage power supply.
- cbhl 12y ago
  Depending on what you're trying to build, a Spark Photon might be a better fit for your project.
- danpat 12y ago
  It's probably the economics of FCC/CE testing vs utility. The testing for unintentional radiators is onerous enough. If you add an intentional radiator, you trigger a whole lot more tests and a whole more cost.
schappim 12y ago
What's the same: - Same form factor as the model B+ (your enclosures and daughter boards should still fit). - Same full size HDMI port - Same 10/100 Ethernet port - Same CSI camera port and DSI display ports - Same micro USB power supply connection What has changed: - A new turbocharged Broadcom BCM2836 900MHz quad-core system-on-chip with performance at least 6x that of the B+. - 1GB of RAM Source: http://raspberry.piaustralia.com.au/products/raspberry-pi-2-model-b http://raspberry.piaustralia.com.au/products/raspberry-pi-2-...
- arbuge 12y ago
  Under the "Same" column, it looks like you need to add "Same price - $35". I stocked up on B+s over Christmas - oh well... The "at least 6x" performance claim should be "at least 3x" by the way, and even that is an estimate, not a guarantee. The 3x is on a single thread comparison, the 6x is on a somewhat synthetic multicore benchmark test.
  - hayksaakian 12y ago
    Can you return them? If its less than 30 day...?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - ksrm 12y ago
      In the EU, the consumer rights directive allows you to return most goods bought online up to 14 days after delivery.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - rys 12y ago
    The Cortex-A7 is also faster per-core, per-clock than the old ARM11 processor, and the clock is higher. So with 4x the amount of cores, some multiplier for the per-core, per-clock stats, and 1.28x the clock, 6x makes some (marketing) sense.
wyager 12y ago
I wish they would release one with DMA based gigabit Ethernet. That always seems to be the bottleneck for me.
- 20kleagues 12y ago
  It would have been much sense with the newer CPU. My old Pi hiccups at very high IO over ethernet, specially when I am processing the incoming streams.
  - geerlingguy 12y ago
    Same here; I've found the CPU to generally be the limiting factor, with IO (network or disk) only sometimes coming into play. The somewhat faster CPU could definitely help in this regard, but doesn't the network jack go through a USB 2.0 bus? If that's the case, that's probably the limiting factor.
- jorde 12y ago
  Couldn't agree more, the current USB powered Ethernet speed is the biggest bottleneck of RPi.
ryan-allen 12y ago
While a bit more expensive, I purchased a Hummingboard [1] instead of a Pi, and the performance was great! I had a NodeJS/Postgresql app running on it for kicks. I was surprised at how quick it was. [1] http://www.solid-run.com/products/hummingboard/linux-sbc-specifications/ http://www.solid-run.com/products/hummingboard/linux-sbc-spe...
- mkoryak 12y ago
  the entry level model is 70 bucks. Its a bit more than a bit more expensive.
- nacs 12y ago
  > While a bit more expensive Actually at least twice as expensive (starts at $70 compared to the RPi's $35). And with the new RPi announced here, it's basically twice the price for quarter/half the CPU power of the Pi (single/dual core vs 4 core RPi).
seba_dos1 12y ago
The most important info is missing: does it still require a non-free blob to even just boot Linux?
- wmf 12y ago
  Broadcom is still Broadcom.
  - userbinator 12y ago
    It doesn't look like BCM is intending to release any more datasheets/programming information either, which is not surprising. There will probably never be any detailed information released, officially or otherwise, on any BCM SoCs, even after they're long EOL'd. As far as openness is concerned the RPi is basically a smartphone/tablet SoC devboard, with most of the hardware proprietary - while its Chinese competitors (Allwinner, Mediatek, Rockchip, etc.) are officially quite closed too, the docs for many of their SoCs are available (admittedly leaked; but they seem to be turning a blind eye to it.) They're also at least a Cortex-A7. I wonder how the RPi2 compares to this: https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-... Dual 1GHz A7s, 512MB, SATA, HDMI, USB, Ethernet (integrated on SoC, not through USB), fully open-source, in the same price range.
    - seba_dos1 12y ago
      If only uploading the proprietary GPU firmware wasn't necessary to just launch the CPU, even at the cost of 3D acceleration and stuff like that, I'd be happy with it. It may even have reflashable closed blob inside - I know RMS wouldn't be happy with that, but I would. RasPi 1, however, required the user to provide a non-free blob on SD card, which is what I'm extremely unhappy with.
      - throwaway000002 12y ago
        What does this really matter? A closed blob is a closed blob, it's not like the cpu itself isn't a closed blob. Now on the other hand, if the closed blob entails that functionality you expected can be taken away from you without your control, that's a different matter. Sure, I don't put it far beyond Broadcom, but that's a different matter.
WhitneyLand 12y ago
ARMv6 still? I don't see how that's necessary to save on the BOM. I hope legacy code was not the deciding factor here.
- TD-Linux 12y ago
  I haven't been able to find what CPU core is used in the new chip. 3x sunspider performance is over the BCM2835 is claimed, which is not with the higher clocked ARM11 cores. They also reference limitations of the ARM11 core being gone. However, elsewhere in the article they still say it is an ARM11 core.
- drew-y 12y ago
  I was disappointed about that too.
- zobzu 12y ago
  That was pretty much my feel as well. So much for "now the CPU's fast"... yeah nope.
  - drew-y 12y ago
    I thought the issue was mostly about lack of support?
    - zobzu 12y ago
      meh, it'd be nice if it was more open from the CPU point of view but it kinda works out, plus "there's always hope". Can't make up for the lack of instructions and power. Heck, both of them reasons while I like intel chips afterall. Their newest ones are pretty sexy too. I'm hoping sexy boards of similar form factor, and... oh yeah price.. err. yeah not going to happen :( So in the meantime armv7+ boards are pretty decent (with similar random support, which, also mostly works out)
- damian2000 12y ago
  Is that really important for most buyers though?
AceJohnny2 12y ago
ARM11/(ARMv6)? I thought that core was a dead-end that was quickly replaced by the Cortex-A (ARMv7) series. Surprised to see ARMv6 in new hardware in this age...
- pekk 12y ago
  You sure will, for a higher price.
- chadzawistowski 12y ago
  The RPi2 uses an ARMv7 Cortex A7 processor, not an ARMv6.
  - AceJohnny2 12y ago
    Thanks, I see the article has been updated (it stated ARM11 this morning), but too late to edit my comment.
SSilver2k2 12y ago
Excited to see how well this will help my distro PiPlay (and PetRock's RetroPie). Can't wait to get my hands on the hardware -Shea
20kleagues 12y ago
Finally more power for graphics. I am seeing some interesting VR projects with the more horsepower, especially since VR is THE thing right now. And the pi is light enough for head-mounting!
- mappu 12y ago
  I'd love to see this happen. But i think that's very wishful thinking, outside of some very simple scenes - my R9 270 struggles to maintain framerate with some DK2 demos and the pi's VC4 isn't remotely in the same league.
  - 20kleagues 12y ago
    I think we will need to look at streaming scenes from a more powerful machine rather than creating them on board. I don't believe we are ready in any way to process that much information on such a small system at this time (HoloLens also gives out quite a lot of heat from its on board processor). The old pi had trouble streaming higher bitrates, though then we still have the same ethernet so I am not sure how much is possible.
Gnewt 12y ago
Anyone know where this can be purchased now?
- jamestnz 12y ago
  From the usual Pi manufacturing partners, e.g.: http://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-bplus?ICID=rpimain-topban-BPlus http://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi/ra... EDIT: apologies, it looks like this link in fact contains the "old" B+ not the one discussed here, my bad.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- mikepalmer 12y ago
  Could not find it at the standard resellers yet… maybe on Monday (Feb 2) morning? http://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi http://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi http://www.alliedelec.com/search/results.aspx?term=raspberry http://www.alliedelec.com/search/results.aspx?term=raspberry http://uk.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberrypi http://uk.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberry...
- tdicola 12y ago
  Adafruit has it in their shop: https://www.adafruit.com/products/2358 https://www.adafruit.com/products/2358
  - toni 12y ago
    Why would it cost $44.95? The Register article specifically says "the Pi 2 will sell at the same price as the B+ – $35 – but the latter will live on"
- jamestnz 12y ago
  Looks like the E14 sales link for the new one is now live, http://www.element14.com/community/view-product.jspa?fsku=2461030&nsku=38Y6467&COM=noscript-sw http://www.element14.com/community/view-product.jspa?fsku=24...
mrmondo 12y ago
Still no GbE which is a massive disappointment for me.
programminggeek 12y ago
Am I weird for wanting to use this for really simple web hosting?
- 20kleagues 12y ago
  Nope. The Pi makes a lot of sense for a simple web server with a robust SQL/NOSQL database backend running with Node/Go. If you have a good internet connection with a good upload speed, you can easily run a server able to take a couple of hundred hits a minute. It is certainly a better option than using the cloud for prototyping, where a wrong for loop can instantiate loads of instances and bill you a hell lot.
  - nkozyra 12y ago
    The Pi does not make sense for any level of consumer-targeted production (dev, stage or live) beyond "oh hey, it works." "A couple of hundred hits a minute" is also not impressive in the least, even for something of the Pi's stature. I also don't think the stack would matter all that much at this point - IO blocking would be happening at the application level, not the architectural. Node, Go, Ruby, Python, PHP ... it really wouldn't matter. SQL versus NoSQL is also a non-issue in this case. I also wouldn't take something very underpowered instead of the cloud just because I hadn't configured my cloud host to keep things within reason (ie no autoscaling at all, which is what you'd expect for hobby-level prototyping. tldr; don't eschew better options for the Pi unless you don't understand how your cloud host works.
    - 20kleagues 12y ago
      I agree it makes no sense for consumer-targeted production. I have played with the pi and run a small robot to collect intermittent data from twitter and store it on Mongo, which I can remotely access using the web service. At the same time, I would not want to go all the way to the cloud for such a small thing. I guess it depends on the use-case.
    - mikro2nd 12y ago
      OTOH you could front a pi-based server with Pagekite (pagekite.net) and get the best of both worlds.
wyldfire 12y ago
How does this compare with the ODROID-C1? http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G141578608433 http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code...
- tbrock 12y ago
  The odroid blows it away. I've had mine for about two months and love it.
  - mkesper 12y ago
    How could you compare it against the brand new raspberry?
    - techrat 12y ago
      C1 came first, is available now and has a fully open GPU whereas the Pi still relies on Broadcomm's mostly proprietary chip. C1 also allows you to add NAND directly to the board where the Pi is still limited to MicroSD. C1 also confirmed to not have the same bus limitation that plagues the first Pi an is unconfirmed to exist in Pi2. C1 also has a built in RTC and a 5v Barrel Pin jack so you don't have to rely on MicroUSB for power. http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php It's simply much better thought out.
      - Narishma 12y ago
        The C1 has a ARM Mali GPU, which is just as close as the rest of the GPUs available on ARM SoCs. The RPi GPU is the most open in that market in that it has some documentation and source code available.
- tmuir 12y ago
  The ODROID-C1 looks very nice. My main hesitations would be available drivers and community size. They may have drivers for everything, I don't know. It is nice to see that a somewhat recent kernel is available though (3.10). I recently ported several projects I had from beaglebone black to an Olinuxino A10 Lime. A lot of stuff was relatively painless, but I was never able to get Node.js to install. I also got bit in the ass because I laid out and ordered PCBs assuming all of the SPI channels had drivers, when only one was there (of course, not the one I chose). Embedded Linux constantly reminds you that you are standing on the shoulders of giants, and you can go from feeling like a wizard to feeling like an idiot real quick when some part of the system isn't working. That's where having the communities like beaglebone's and raspberry pi's really pay off.
rasz_pl 12y ago
Wonder if they fixed USB problems (dma/internal bus bottlenecking or something). Info about quad core CPU is a bit sketchy, either its one of Cortex cores, or BCM tweaked ARM11/bumped L1 cache to max 64KB value and/or added proper L2 cache. So many unknowns. Edit: Milhouse, Team-Kodi Member: "ARMv7 and NEON instructions" http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=217040&pid=1911780#p.. http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=217040&pid=1911780#p.... WOOOHOOO now we are cooking, Broadcom is back in business, first hiring real flesh and blood open source GPU drivers developer, now this. Next thing you know they will open up DSI port specification or something :o
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- tonylemesmer 12y ago
  Some good detail here from one of the RPi / Broadcom engineers: http://jamesrandominfo.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/raspberry-pi-2-b-first-impressions.html http://jamesrandominfo.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/raspberry-pi-2...
exabrial 12y ago
Need gigabit!
- viraptor 12y ago
  Just curious, (if you can share) what are you doing on your RPi that saturates the 100Mb?
  - menacingly 12y ago
    I would also be curious if you are able to reach 100Mb with your pi
  - werkshy 12y ago
    I run mine as a NAS, and the performance is pretty terrible. The portability is great though! I'm somewhat nomadic at the moment so it's great to have a 1TB NAS that I can pack in my laptop bag (1TB external 2.5" drive + rpi: minimal weight too)
aceperry 12y ago
Nice update, and still at the $35 price point. Too bad it's still ARMv6. It would be nice to have ARMv7 which is where all of the high performance stuff is. Edit. I take that back, it will be ARMv7 arch. Other articles state that the new Broadcom SOC will be using A7s. That makes it huge for this price point.
tbrock 12y ago
Why would anyone buy this over the much more powerful ARMv7 odroid-C1 for $35 that has been out for months now?
- jwcooper 12y ago
  There are many reasons. The large community that is involved with the Pi. The large number of tutorials, and guides available. The incredible amount of accessories available and customized for the Pi. The Pi has the momentum. The odroid-C1 may be fantastic, but it's the first time I've ever heard of it.
  - sounds 12y ago
    I hesitate to chime in, but in the interest of completeness: The Odroids all use Mali graphics. Mali isn't particularly worse than the Pi's VideoCore IV, but it's not particularly better either... And the BeagleBone vs Pi comparison here is worth reading: http://section9.choamco.com/2012/07/beagleboard-vs-beagleboard-xm-beaglebone-vs-raspberry-pi/ http://section9.choamco.com/2012/07/beagleboard-vs-beagleboa... P.S. I double-checked that the Odroids are all shipping with Mali. Happy to be proven wrong though. Does anyone know of similar-priced dev boards from Qualcomm? Qualcomm's Adreno is definitely the most interesting GPU architecture in this space. Adreno is an anagram of Radeon.
    - pella 12y ago
      other dev boards: "Ringing in 2015 with 40 Linux-friendly hacker SBCs" (Dec 31, 2014) http://linuxgizmos.com/ringing-in-2015-with-40-linux-friendly-hacker-sbcs/ http://linuxgizmos.com/ringing-in-2015-with-40-linux-friendl... "Nine sub-$50 SBCs that challenge the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black: 86Duino, A10-OLinuXino-Lime, Arduino TRE, Banana Pi, BPi D1, HummingBoard-i1, Odroid-C1, Orange Pi, and pcDuino3 Nano"
      - freehunter 12y ago
        Wow, some of those names... lots of *duino and Pi. And anyone would wonder why people choose Arduino and RPi, because everything else is an imitation.
brudgers 12y ago
The headline gave me hope. Alas no button on the front for overclocking. I am wistfully disappointed.
- glynjackson 12y ago
  Really? Build a button yourself to overlock! The Pi is about giving you the tools, now, go forth and build.
  - brudgers 12y ago
    First I want to revel in inch thick Computer Shopper whist.
- rcarmo 12y ago
  Jokes aside, I'm curious as to whether this can be overclocked to any extent, like its predecessor.
  - ozy23378 12y ago
    Yes, according to this post: http://haydenjames.io/raspberry-pi-2-overclock/ http://haydenjames.io/raspberry-pi-2-overclock/
ropable 12y ago
Maybe the Kano will be able to perform worth a damn, now (post-upgrade).
rcarmo 12y ago
Well well. I'm going to hold off an wait until someone can benchmark this against the ODROID-C1, though, largely because the original Pi design had a few shortcuts and I'd like to avoid any teething issues (been using ODROIDs for a while, got full hardware support in Ubuntu and Android and don't have to put up with Debian 7.x).
bayesianhorse 12y ago
Any news if the Raspbery Pi 2 will have USB 3.0 ports? That seems to be a good selling point for the Odroid XU3 currently... USB 3.0 ports would mean better performance as NAS or multimedia recording solution, as well as alleviating some of the current troubles with usb performance.
- GeorgeHahn 12y ago
  No chance.
- tomaskafka 12y ago
  Are they necessary? My Radxa (quadcore 1.7 GHz ARMv7) cannot exceed 6 MB/s read from HDD no matter how hard it tries with NTFS formatted disc (for comparison, Raspberry Pi A was doing about 600 kB/s max in a same configuration). Both are far under USB 2.0 speed.
sagarm 12y ago
The only place I've found to buy this thing so far is here: http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/processor-microcontroller-development-kits/8326274/ http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/processor-microcontroller-deve... Where can I buy this thing in the US? Any info on whether there will be an RPi-compatible Python library for accessing GPIO?
lucaspiller 12y ago
Here is the official announcement: http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/ It has an ARMv7 processor.
Al__Dante 12y ago
It's a 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU. ARM7, it's official: http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/
- chj 12y ago
  And windows 10 will be on its list, imagine that.
- escap 12y ago
  "For the last six months [ RPi team has ] been working closely with Microsoft to bring the forthcoming Windows 10 to Raspberry Pi 2. Microsoft will have much more to share over the coming months. The Raspberry Pi 2-compatible version of Windows 10 will be available free of charge to makers. Visit WindowsOnDevices.com today to join the Windows Developer Program for IoT and receive updates as they become available." http://dev.windows.com/en-us/featured/raspberrypi2support http://dev.windows.com/en-us/featured/raspberrypi2support
  - jenscow 12y ago
    I wonder if Microsoft have helped in making the PI capable of running Windows 10, for the same price.
    - benn_88 12y ago
      No, it's just Broadcom and the Raspberry Pi engineering team that made the product happen. At the point we knew Pi 2 would be happening, the conversation with MS started and they started work porting Windows to it - with a little help from our engineers. - Ben from Raspberry Pi
- tankenmate 12y ago
  It's actually ARMv7 not ARM7; but anyway ARMv7 means it will be able to run stock ARM Ubuntu.
  - 12y ago
yAnonymous 12y ago
ARMv7... so Ubuntu will finally run on this. No more hours of compiling software.
- sime 12y ago
  Yes and looks like Snappy Ubuntu Core is already ready to run on it as well: https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/02/02/snappy-ubuntu-core-on-raspberry-pi-2/ https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/02/02/snappy-ubuntu-core-on...
zumtar 12y ago
Interesting to see a Broadcom logo and chip markings visible on the CPU now. Love 'em or hate 'em, I suspect Broadcom are very happy about this as those chip markings are prime marketing real estate. Considering the phenomenal success of the previous Raspberry Pi units this probably formed part of the negotiations for the CPU price. There are of course other considerations such as trace lengths and availability of packages for both the CPU and LPDDR2 but that logo being directly in the hands of the engineers of tomorrow makes a big difference. The previous models used a PoP (Package-on-Package) stack of the CPU and SDRAM and now they've moved to discrete SoC and DDR2 packages (with the DDR2 chip now on the underside of the PCB).
- pjc50 12y ago
  One of the announcement posts said "this Broadcom chip will be available for sale subject to meeting MOQ". So I'm expecting someone will do a kickstarter to buy 10k of them and reship them as singles. No longer doing POP moves it from "nope" territory into something the average small assembly house should be able to cope with. Not that you need to do this given that the compute module exists, but I'm sure someone will want to do it.
majc2 12y ago
Will it run some version of flash? (and yes I tried gnash to no avail). I spent the weekend explaining to an 8 and 6 y/o that they can't share and look at other Scratch projects at scratch.mit.edu on the RPi :(
- andybak 12y ago
  Not sure if this might help: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8982251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8982251 Probably a performance hit - but with the js performance arms race - maybe not!
  - 0942v8653 12y ago
    That's Scratch 1.4—normal Raspbian comes with it built-in, actually—the trouble is Scratch 2.0, which is fully flash-based.
    - andybak 12y ago
      Wow. That was an unusual technology choice to make in 2013.
lmedinas 12y ago
This update is very welcome and for sure it will make people create more interesting "projects". Personally i'm very excited to get one of these to run owncloud at decent performance in my home. Also the possibility to install more Linux distributions or even Windows 10 will open much possibilities for development. Well Done!!
higherpurpose 12y ago
Why didn't they just skip to Cortex A53? It would've been worth waiting a year longer for that.
davexunit 12y ago
It still requires proprietary firmware to function at all. No thanks. Please fix this serious flaw! Edit: And to make things worse, they are giving away gratis Windows 10 licenses for it!
- FrankenPC 12y ago
  This is actually a great boon. The Windows development environment is incredibly inviting to beginners and it has a lot of power. Linux may be more flexible and open, but it's really hard to get started with when you have no experience programming.
  - davexunit 12y ago
    Microsoft says "you are not allowed to learn about our software". Besides being an inferior programming environment, it is also an anti-educational one.
Thiz 12y ago
Remove the ethernet port. Remove the double stacked usb ports. Use single rows of micro USB or Lightning, 4 on one side. Make it flatter, simpler, more beautiful. Encase it in alluminum. Steve Jobs would do it and push it through our throats. And we would love it. Or at least make it a premium choice, and make extra money from those who love beauty.
- vlunkr 12y ago
  I don't agree with encasing it for a couple of reasons. 1) The goal is to get maximum functionality out of minimal cost. If you want to encase it you can buy a case yourself. 2) Not including a case has encouraged the community to get creative and sell cases, or patterns to 3D print one. Inspiring creativity is another goal of the foundation. I wouldn't mind if it was a little smaller, but again, they want to keep the cost down.
phkahler 12y ago
How is the wayland/weston support going? This thing should be quite capable now.
bugsense 12y ago
Install resin.io on it and smile :) I could even use them for light-weight app server :)
gregorymichael 12y ago
How do I purchase this in the US?
- mikefivedeuce 12y ago
  Element14 should have it
cpks 12y ago
I really want 2gb. I'm surprised there isn't a market of Pi-like devices, with compatible software, but higher price points and higher specs.
- RadioactiveMan 12y ago
  These could interest you: Odroid-C1[1] with 1GB RAM for $35 or U3[2] with 2GB for $69 [1]http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G141578608433 http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code... [2]http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G138745696275 http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code...

573 points by mmastrac 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Awesome!! I just wish they would release one with onboard Wifi instead of ethernet. I have no statistics to back this up, but I'm pretty sure that USB Wifi adapters would be the most common accessory.

chj 12y ago
It'd be great to have wifi on board, but ethernet is still important.
sdenton4 12y ago
I use the onboard ethernet pretty constantly, mainly because I find the wireless to be finicky and hard to troubleshoot when you're running a headless setup. I can always plug in an ethernet cable, though...
- gorgas 12y ago
  Agree. However Finally I was able to keep an uptime greater than 2 months on my Pi by using a wifi dongle and a bunch of cron scripts to keep alive the connection when my router reboots or the dongle 'freezes' which seems is a common issue when using RPi of any kind :(
  - gcb0 12y ago
    that's probably a bad dongle. i connect my htpc via a Wi-Fi USB dongle as well. it runs both Linux and windows 7. and despite the os and drivers one model always hang after a day or so. another one, different model from same brand is online for months at a time. it's mostly badly designed/tested hardware.
    - gorgas 12y ago
      I was expecting a answer like "my dongle X just works on the Pi" :-) I do not doubt it is a problem with the hardware or the drivers, I just say it is a common problem with many dongle vendors specially in the Pi. I know I could buy a RPi-certified dongle, but I do not like wasting hardware if I can fix it just with a few scripts. No offense :)
      - TheOtherHobbes 12y ago
        WiFi on the Pi 'just doesn't work.' You can get it working for a while, but it's nowhere near the reliability of standard domestic WiFi. I've built various sensor/hardware projects and tried various dongles, and I've always had to switch back to a cabled connection.
  - StavrosK 12y ago
    I had that issue as well, where it would freeze if it transferred lots of data (as in, a large number of files in a dir would freeze it when doing ls on the terminal), and the problems went away with a higher-amperage power supply.
cbhl 12y ago
Depending on what you're trying to build, a Spark Photon might be a better fit for your project.
danpat 12y ago
It's probably the economics of FCC/CE testing vs utility. The testing for unintentional radiators is onerous enough. If you add an intentional radiator, you trigger a whole lot more tests and a whole more cost.

schappim 12y ago

What's the same: - Same form factor as the model B+ (your enclosures and daughter boards should still fit). - Same full size HDMI port - Same 10/100 Ethernet port - Same CSI camera port and DSI display ports - Same micro USB power supply connection What has changed: - A new turbocharged Broadcom BCM2836 900MHz quad-core system-on-chip with performance at least 6x that of the B+. - 1GB of RAM Source: http://raspberry.piaustralia.com.au/products/raspberry-pi-2-model-b http://raspberry.piaustralia.com.au/products/raspberry-pi-2-...

arbuge 12y ago
Under the "Same" column, it looks like you need to add "Same price - $35". I stocked up on B+s over Christmas - oh well... The "at least 6x" performance claim should be "at least 3x" by the way, and even that is an estimate, not a guarantee. The 3x is on a single thread comparison, the 6x is on a somewhat synthetic multicore benchmark test.
- hayksaakian 12y ago
  Can you return them? If its less than 30 day...?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - ksrm 12y ago
    In the EU, the consumer rights directive allows you to return most goods bought online up to 14 days after delivery.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- rys 12y ago
  The Cortex-A7 is also faster per-core, per-clock than the old ARM11 processor, and the clock is higher. So with 4x the amount of cores, some multiplier for the per-core, per-clock stats, and 1.28x the clock, 6x makes some (marketing) sense.

wyager 12y ago

I wish they would release one with DMA based gigabit Ethernet. That always seems to be the bottleneck for me.

20kleagues 12y ago
It would have been much sense with the newer CPU. My old Pi hiccups at very high IO over ethernet, specially when I am processing the incoming streams.
- geerlingguy 12y ago
  Same here; I've found the CPU to generally be the limiting factor, with IO (network or disk) only sometimes coming into play. The somewhat faster CPU could definitely help in this regard, but doesn't the network jack go through a USB 2.0 bus? If that's the case, that's probably the limiting factor.
jorde 12y ago
Couldn't agree more, the current USB powered Ethernet speed is the biggest bottleneck of RPi.

ryan-allen 12y ago

While a bit more expensive, I purchased a Hummingboard [1] instead of a Pi, and the performance was great! I had a NodeJS/Postgresql app running on it for kicks. I was surprised at how quick it was. [1] http://www.solid-run.com/products/hummingboard/linux-sbc-specifications/ http://www.solid-run.com/products/hummingboard/linux-sbc-spe...

mkoryak 12y ago
the entry level model is 70 bucks. Its a bit more than a bit more expensive.
nacs 12y ago
> While a bit more expensive Actually at least twice as expensive (starts at $70 compared to the RPi's $35). And with the new RPi announced here, it's basically twice the price for quarter/half the CPU power of the Pi (single/dual core vs 4 core RPi).

seba_dos1 12y ago

The most important info is missing: does it still require a non-free blob to even just boot Linux?

wmf 12y ago
Broadcom is still Broadcom.
- userbinator 12y ago
  It doesn't look like BCM is intending to release any more datasheets/programming information either, which is not surprising. There will probably never be any detailed information released, officially or otherwise, on any BCM SoCs, even after they're long EOL'd. As far as openness is concerned the RPi is basically a smartphone/tablet SoC devboard, with most of the hardware proprietary - while its Chinese competitors (Allwinner, Mediatek, Rockchip, etc.) are officially quite closed too, the docs for many of their SoCs are available (admittedly leaked; but they seem to be turning a blind eye to it.) They're also at least a Cortex-A7. I wonder how the RPi2 compares to this: https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-LIME/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/A20/A20-OLinuXino-... Dual 1GHz A7s, 512MB, SATA, HDMI, USB, Ethernet (integrated on SoC, not through USB), fully open-source, in the same price range.
  - seba_dos1 12y ago
    If only uploading the proprietary GPU firmware wasn't necessary to just launch the CPU, even at the cost of 3D acceleration and stuff like that, I'd be happy with it. It may even have reflashable closed blob inside - I know RMS wouldn't be happy with that, but I would. RasPi 1, however, required the user to provide a non-free blob on SD card, which is what I'm extremely unhappy with.
    - throwaway000002 12y ago
      What does this really matter? A closed blob is a closed blob, it's not like the cpu itself isn't a closed blob. Now on the other hand, if the closed blob entails that functionality you expected can be taken away from you without your control, that's a different matter. Sure, I don't put it far beyond Broadcom, but that's a different matter.

WhitneyLand 12y ago

ARMv6 still? I don't see how that's necessary to save on the BOM. I hope legacy code was not the deciding factor here.

TD-Linux 12y ago
I haven't been able to find what CPU core is used in the new chip. 3x sunspider performance is over the BCM2835 is claimed, which is not with the higher clocked ARM11 cores. They also reference limitations of the ARM11 core being gone. However, elsewhere in the article they still say it is an ARM11 core.
drew-y 12y ago
I was disappointed about that too.
zobzu 12y ago
That was pretty much my feel as well. So much for "now the CPU's fast"... yeah nope.
- drew-y 12y ago
  I thought the issue was mostly about lack of support?
  - zobzu 12y ago
    meh, it'd be nice if it was more open from the CPU point of view but it kinda works out, plus "there's always hope". Can't make up for the lack of instructions and power. Heck, both of them reasons while I like intel chips afterall. Their newest ones are pretty sexy too. I'm hoping sexy boards of similar form factor, and... oh yeah price.. err. yeah not going to happen :( So in the meantime armv7+ boards are pretty decent (with similar random support, which, also mostly works out)
damian2000 12y ago
Is that really important for most buyers though?

AceJohnny2 12y ago

ARM11/(ARMv6)? I thought that core was a dead-end that was quickly replaced by the Cortex-A (ARMv7) series. Surprised to see ARMv6 in new hardware in this age...

pekk 12y ago
You sure will, for a higher price.
chadzawistowski 12y ago
The RPi2 uses an ARMv7 Cortex A7 processor, not an ARMv6.
- AceJohnny2 12y ago
  Thanks, I see the article has been updated (it stated ARM11 this morning), but too late to edit my comment.

SSilver2k2 12y ago

Excited to see how well this will help my distro PiPlay (and PetRock's RetroPie). Can't wait to get my hands on the hardware -Shea

20kleagues 12y ago

Finally more power for graphics. I am seeing some interesting VR projects with the more horsepower, especially since VR is THE thing right now. And the pi is light enough for head-mounting!

mappu 12y ago
I'd love to see this happen. But i think that's very wishful thinking, outside of some very simple scenes - my R9 270 struggles to maintain framerate with some DK2 demos and the pi's VC4 isn't remotely in the same league.
- 20kleagues 12y ago
  I think we will need to look at streaming scenes from a more powerful machine rather than creating them on board. I don't believe we are ready in any way to process that much information on such a small system at this time (HoloLens also gives out quite a lot of heat from its on board processor). The old pi had trouble streaming higher bitrates, though then we still have the same ethernet so I am not sure how much is possible.

Gnewt 12y ago

Anyone know where this can be purchased now?

jamestnz 12y ago
From the usual Pi manufacturing partners, e.g.: http://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-bplus?ICID=rpimain-topban-BPlus http://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi/ra... EDIT: apologies, it looks like this link in fact contains the "old" B+ not the one discussed here, my bad.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
mikepalmer 12y ago
Could not find it at the standard resellers yet… maybe on Monday (Feb 2) morning? http://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi http://www.element14.com/community/community/raspberry-pi http://www.alliedelec.com/search/results.aspx?term=raspberry http://www.alliedelec.com/search/results.aspx?term=raspberry http://uk.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberrypi http://uk.rs-online.com/web/generalDisplay.html?id=raspberry...
tdicola 12y ago
Adafruit has it in their shop: https://www.adafruit.com/products/2358 https://www.adafruit.com/products/2358
- toni 12y ago
  Why would it cost $44.95? The Register article specifically says "the Pi 2 will sell at the same price as the B+ – $35 – but the latter will live on"
jamestnz 12y ago
Looks like the E14 sales link for the new one is now live, http://www.element14.com/community/view-product.jspa?fsku=2461030&nsku=38Y6467&COM=noscript-sw http://www.element14.com/community/view-product.jspa?fsku=24...

mrmondo 12y ago

Still no GbE which is a massive disappointment for me.

programminggeek 12y ago

Am I weird for wanting to use this for really simple web hosting?

20kleagues 12y ago
Nope. The Pi makes a lot of sense for a simple web server with a robust SQL/NOSQL database backend running with Node/Go. If you have a good internet connection with a good upload speed, you can easily run a server able to take a couple of hundred hits a minute. It is certainly a better option than using the cloud for prototyping, where a wrong for loop can instantiate loads of instances and bill you a hell lot.
- nkozyra 12y ago
  The Pi does not make sense for any level of consumer-targeted production (dev, stage or live) beyond "oh hey, it works." "A couple of hundred hits a minute" is also not impressive in the least, even for something of the Pi's stature. I also don't think the stack would matter all that much at this point - IO blocking would be happening at the application level, not the architectural. Node, Go, Ruby, Python, PHP ... it really wouldn't matter. SQL versus NoSQL is also a non-issue in this case. I also wouldn't take something very underpowered instead of the cloud just because I hadn't configured my cloud host to keep things within reason (ie no autoscaling at all, which is what you'd expect for hobby-level prototyping. tldr; don't eschew better options for the Pi unless you don't understand how your cloud host works.
  - 20kleagues 12y ago
    I agree it makes no sense for consumer-targeted production. I have played with the pi and run a small robot to collect intermittent data from twitter and store it on Mongo, which I can remotely access using the web service. At the same time, I would not want to go all the way to the cloud for such a small thing. I guess it depends on the use-case.
  - mikro2nd 12y ago
    OTOH you could front a pi-based server with Pagekite (pagekite.net) and get the best of both worlds.

wyldfire 12y ago

How does this compare with the ODROID-C1? http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G141578608433 http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code...

tbrock 12y ago
The odroid blows it away. I've had mine for about two months and love it.
- mkesper 12y ago
  How could you compare it against the brand new raspberry?
  - techrat 12y ago
    C1 came first, is available now and has a fully open GPU whereas the Pi still relies on Broadcomm's mostly proprietary chip. C1 also allows you to add NAND directly to the board where the Pi is still limited to MicroSD. C1 also confirmed to not have the same bus limitation that plagues the first Pi an is unconfirmed to exist in Pi2. C1 also has a built in RTC and a 5v Barrel Pin jack so you don't have to rely on MicroUSB for power. http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php It's simply much better thought out.
    - Narishma 12y ago
      The C1 has a ARM Mali GPU, which is just as close as the rest of the GPUs available on ARM SoCs. The RPi GPU is the most open in that market in that it has some documentation and source code available.
tmuir 12y ago
The ODROID-C1 looks very nice. My main hesitations would be available drivers and community size. They may have drivers for everything, I don't know. It is nice to see that a somewhat recent kernel is available though (3.10). I recently ported several projects I had from beaglebone black to an Olinuxino A10 Lime. A lot of stuff was relatively painless, but I was never able to get Node.js to install. I also got bit in the ass because I laid out and ordered PCBs assuming all of the SPI channels had drivers, when only one was there (of course, not the one I chose). Embedded Linux constantly reminds you that you are standing on the shoulders of giants, and you can go from feeling like a wizard to feeling like an idiot real quick when some part of the system isn't working. That's where having the communities like beaglebone's and raspberry pi's really pay off.

rasz_pl 12y ago

Wonder if they fixed USB problems (dma/internal bus bottlenecking or something). Info about quad core CPU is a bit sketchy, either its one of Cortex cores, or BCM tweaked ARM11/bumped L1 cache to max 64KB value and/or added proper L2 cache. So many unknowns. Edit: Milhouse, Team-Kodi Member: "ARMv7 and NEON instructions" http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=217040&pid=1911780#p.. http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=217040&pid=1911780#p.... WOOOHOOO now we are cooking, Broadcom is back in business, first hiring real flesh and blood open source GPU drivers developer, now this. Next thing you know they will open up DSI port specification or something :o

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
tonylemesmer 12y ago
Some good detail here from one of the RPi / Broadcom engineers: http://jamesrandominfo.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/raspberry-pi-2-b-first-impressions.html http://jamesrandominfo.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/raspberry-pi-2...

exabrial 12y ago

Need gigabit!

viraptor 12y ago
Just curious, (if you can share) what are you doing on your RPi that saturates the 100Mb?
- menacingly 12y ago
  I would also be curious if you are able to reach 100Mb with your pi
- werkshy 12y ago
  I run mine as a NAS, and the performance is pretty terrible. The portability is great though! I'm somewhat nomadic at the moment so it's great to have a 1TB NAS that I can pack in my laptop bag (1TB external 2.5" drive + rpi: minimal weight too)

aceperry 12y ago

Nice update, and still at the $35 price point. Too bad it's still ARMv6. It would be nice to have ARMv7 which is where all of the high performance stuff is. Edit. I take that back, it will be ARMv7 arch. Other articles state that the new Broadcom SOC will be using A7s. That makes it huge for this price point.

tbrock 12y ago

Why would anyone buy this over the much more powerful ARMv7 odroid-C1 for $35 that has been out for months now?

jwcooper 12y ago
There are many reasons. The large community that is involved with the Pi. The large number of tutorials, and guides available. The incredible amount of accessories available and customized for the Pi. The Pi has the momentum. The odroid-C1 may be fantastic, but it's the first time I've ever heard of it.
- sounds 12y ago
  I hesitate to chime in, but in the interest of completeness: The Odroids all use Mali graphics. Mali isn't particularly worse than the Pi's VideoCore IV, but it's not particularly better either... And the BeagleBone vs Pi comparison here is worth reading: http://section9.choamco.com/2012/07/beagleboard-vs-beagleboard-xm-beaglebone-vs-raspberry-pi/ http://section9.choamco.com/2012/07/beagleboard-vs-beagleboa... P.S. I double-checked that the Odroids are all shipping with Mali. Happy to be proven wrong though. Does anyone know of similar-priced dev boards from Qualcomm? Qualcomm's Adreno is definitely the most interesting GPU architecture in this space. Adreno is an anagram of Radeon.
  - pella 12y ago
    other dev boards: "Ringing in 2015 with 40 Linux-friendly hacker SBCs" (Dec 31, 2014) http://linuxgizmos.com/ringing-in-2015-with-40-linux-friendly-hacker-sbcs/ http://linuxgizmos.com/ringing-in-2015-with-40-linux-friendl... "Nine sub-$50 SBCs that challenge the Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone Black: 86Duino, A10-OLinuXino-Lime, Arduino TRE, Banana Pi, BPi D1, HummingBoard-i1, Odroid-C1, Orange Pi, and pcDuino3 Nano"
    - freehunter 12y ago
      Wow, some of those names... lots of *duino and Pi. And anyone would wonder why people choose Arduino and RPi, because everything else is an imitation.

brudgers 12y ago

The headline gave me hope. Alas no button on the front for overclocking. I am wistfully disappointed.

glynjackson 12y ago
Really? Build a button yourself to overlock! The Pi is about giving you the tools, now, go forth and build.
- brudgers 12y ago
  First I want to revel in inch thick Computer Shopper whist.
rcarmo 12y ago
Jokes aside, I'm curious as to whether this can be overclocked to any extent, like its predecessor.
- ozy23378 12y ago
  Yes, according to this post: http://haydenjames.io/raspberry-pi-2-overclock/ http://haydenjames.io/raspberry-pi-2-overclock/

ropable 12y ago

Maybe the Kano will be able to perform worth a damn, now (post-upgrade).

rcarmo 12y ago

Well well. I'm going to hold off an wait until someone can benchmark this against the ODROID-C1, though, largely because the original Pi design had a few shortcuts and I'd like to avoid any teething issues (been using ODROIDs for a while, got full hardware support in Ubuntu and Android and don't have to put up with Debian 7.x).

bayesianhorse 12y ago

Any news if the Raspbery Pi 2 will have USB 3.0 ports? That seems to be a good selling point for the Odroid XU3 currently... USB 3.0 ports would mean better performance as NAS or multimedia recording solution, as well as alleviating some of the current troubles with usb performance.

GeorgeHahn 12y ago
No chance.
tomaskafka 12y ago
Are they necessary? My Radxa (quadcore 1.7 GHz ARMv7) cannot exceed 6 MB/s read from HDD no matter how hard it tries with NTFS formatted disc (for comparison, Raspberry Pi A was doing about 600 kB/s max in a same configuration). Both are far under USB 2.0 speed.

sagarm 12y ago

The only place I've found to buy this thing so far is here: http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/processor-microcontroller-development-kits/8326274/ http://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/processor-microcontroller-deve... Where can I buy this thing in the US? Any info on whether there will be an RPi-compatible Python library for accessing GPIO?

lucaspiller 12y ago

Here is the official announcement: http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/ It has an ARMv7 processor.

Al__Dante 12y ago

It's a 900MHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU. ARM7, it's official: http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/ http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-2-on-sale/

chj 12y ago
And windows 10 will be on its list, imagine that.
escap 12y ago
"For the last six months [ RPi team has ] been working closely with Microsoft to bring the forthcoming Windows 10 to Raspberry Pi 2. Microsoft will have much more to share over the coming months. The Raspberry Pi 2-compatible version of Windows 10 will be available free of charge to makers. Visit WindowsOnDevices.com today to join the Windows Developer Program for IoT and receive updates as they become available." http://dev.windows.com/en-us/featured/raspberrypi2support http://dev.windows.com/en-us/featured/raspberrypi2support
- jenscow 12y ago
  I wonder if Microsoft have helped in making the PI capable of running Windows 10, for the same price.
  - benn_88 12y ago
    No, it's just Broadcom and the Raspberry Pi engineering team that made the product happen. At the point we knew Pi 2 would be happening, the conversation with MS started and they started work porting Windows to it - with a little help from our engineers. - Ben from Raspberry Pi
tankenmate 12y ago
It's actually ARMv7 not ARM7; but anyway ARMv7 means it will be able to run stock ARM Ubuntu.
- 12y ago

yAnonymous 12y ago

ARMv7... so Ubuntu will finally run on this. No more hours of compiling software.

sime 12y ago
Yes and looks like Snappy Ubuntu Core is already ready to run on it as well: https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/02/02/snappy-ubuntu-core-on-raspberry-pi-2/ https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/02/02/snappy-ubuntu-core-on...

zumtar 12y ago

Interesting to see a Broadcom logo and chip markings visible on the CPU now. Love 'em or hate 'em, I suspect Broadcom are very happy about this as those chip markings are prime marketing real estate. Considering the phenomenal success of the previous Raspberry Pi units this probably formed part of the negotiations for the CPU price. There are of course other considerations such as trace lengths and availability of packages for both the CPU and LPDDR2 but that logo being directly in the hands of the engineers of tomorrow makes a big difference. The previous models used a PoP (Package-on-Package) stack of the CPU and SDRAM and now they've moved to discrete SoC and DDR2 packages (with the DDR2 chip now on the underside of the PCB).

pjc50 12y ago
One of the announcement posts said "this Broadcom chip will be available for sale subject to meeting MOQ". So I'm expecting someone will do a kickstarter to buy 10k of them and reship them as singles. No longer doing POP moves it from "nope" territory into something the average small assembly house should be able to cope with. Not that you need to do this given that the compute module exists, but I'm sure someone will want to do it.

majc2 12y ago

Will it run some version of flash? (and yes I tried gnash to no avail). I spent the weekend explaining to an 8 and 6 y/o that they can't share and look at other Scratch projects at scratch.mit.edu on the RPi :(

andybak 12y ago
Not sure if this might help: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8982251 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8982251 Probably a performance hit - but with the js performance arms race - maybe not!
- 0942v8653 12y ago
  That's Scratch 1.4—normal Raspbian comes with it built-in, actually—the trouble is Scratch 2.0, which is fully flash-based.
  - andybak 12y ago
    Wow. That was an unusual technology choice to make in 2013.

lmedinas 12y ago

This update is very welcome and for sure it will make people create more interesting "projects". Personally i'm very excited to get one of these to run owncloud at decent performance in my home. Also the possibility to install more Linux distributions or even Windows 10 will open much possibilities for development. Well Done!!

higherpurpose 12y ago

Why didn't they just skip to Cortex A53? It would've been worth waiting a year longer for that.

davexunit 12y ago

It still requires proprietary firmware to function at all. No thanks. Please fix this serious flaw! Edit: And to make things worse, they are giving away gratis Windows 10 licenses for it!

FrankenPC 12y ago
This is actually a great boon. The Windows development environment is incredibly inviting to beginners and it has a lot of power. Linux may be more flexible and open, but it's really hard to get started with when you have no experience programming.
- davexunit 12y ago
  Microsoft says "you are not allowed to learn about our software". Besides being an inferior programming environment, it is also an anti-educational one.

Thiz 12y ago

Remove the ethernet port. Remove the double stacked usb ports. Use single rows of micro USB or Lightning, 4 on one side. Make it flatter, simpler, more beautiful. Encase it in alluminum. Steve Jobs would do it and push it through our throats. And we would love it. Or at least make it a premium choice, and make extra money from those who love beauty.

vlunkr 12y ago
I don't agree with encasing it for a couple of reasons. 1) The goal is to get maximum functionality out of minimal cost. If you want to encase it you can buy a case yourself. 2) Not including a case has encouraged the community to get creative and sell cases, or patterns to 3D print one. Inspiring creativity is another goal of the foundation. I wouldn't mind if it was a little smaller, but again, they want to keep the cost down.

phkahler 12y ago

How is the wayland/weston support going? This thing should be quite capable now.

bugsense 12y ago

Install resin.io on it and smile :) I could even use them for light-weight app server :)

gregorymichael 12y ago

How do I purchase this in the US?

mikefivedeuce 12y ago
Element14 should have it

cpks 12y ago

I really want 2gb. I'm surprised there isn't a market of Pi-like devices, with compatible software, but higher price points and higher specs.

RadioactiveMan 12y ago
These could interest you: Odroid-C1[1] with 1GB RAM for $35 or U3[2] with 2GB for $69 [1]http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G141578608433 http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code... [2]http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G138745696275 http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code...