Raspberry Pi 2 Is Released

The Raspberry Pi computer has been a massive hit all over, but the team behind the micro PC, the Raspberry Pi Foundation, wasn’t satisfied with the models that they have on the market and have designed a fresh new model that is full of upgraded features and it is notably faster.

The new Raspberry Pi 2 features a massive upgrade in the processor department; a quad-core processor instead of a single-core.

The on board RAM is twice as much as before, now totalling 1GB. What’s really impressive about the Raspberry Pi 2 is the price. The new unit retails for approximately the same price as the original: £22.85 before VAT.

Eben Upton, the founder of Raspberry Pi, has estimated the new model to be around six times as powerful as the predecessor when it comes to running ‘real world’ apps. Windows lovers will be pleased to hear that a version of Windows 10 is also in development for the Raspberry Pi 2.

”This is really a PC now,” said Upton. “You can do most of the things with this that you can do with a PC. You can surf the web, you can watch videos, you can play games like Minecraft. But we also bundle it with the tools that children need in order to learn how to program…The great thing is – apart from those two changes – that we’ve managed to keep everything else the same.

“All of those tutorials that people have developed over the last few years will carry on working with this device. It just kind of broadens out the range of interesting stuff kids can do,” he added.

The Raspberry Pi foundation has stated they have had sales in the region of 200,000 units per month for the original Raspberry Pi. The micro PC has sold a monolithic 4.5m units in total, thereby making it one of the all time, best-selling British computers.

Eben Upton informed the BBC, “We are very, very close to it being the best-selling British computer…I think another half a million and we will go past the Sinclair Spectrum as the best-selling British computer.”

The Raspberry Pi 2 is available to buy now from selected retailers.

[image via makezine]

SOURCE: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-02-03-faster-windows-10-compatible-raspberry-pi-2-released