The Raspberry Pi foundation announced a new model of the popular computing platform
, the Raspberry Pi 2. The most important changes are;
- Much faster processor, they moved from a 700mhz single core to a 900mhz quad-core processor
- Twice as much memory, increased the standard 512mb to 1024mb (1GB)
- Will run a version of Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 10
As a result of the increase in processing power and memory
, the overall speed is said to have been increased by about 600%. Surprisingly the price of the new Pi is the same as the old Pi, around $35.
There is much confusion around the ability of the new Pi to run Windows 10. There is little information available directly from Microsoft. As I understand the announcements
, the Pi WILL NOT run the desktop version of the OS but rather an IoT (Internet of Things) version. This would imply that you won’t be running Office or other desktop apps on a Pi running Windows 10. What you will be able to do is create Raspberry Pi projects like the ones people are building today using a cut down version of Windows 10 instead of the Linux operating systems everyone is using today on the Pi. You will still have the choice to use Linux on the new Pi. The new Pi will be backwards compatible with previous Raspberry Pi hardware
, software and projects.
In summary, the new Raspberry Pi 2 is faster and has more memory but it’s the same size and price. it’s backwards compatible with previous models. This is the one you want.
Here is a quick video