This article was published on October 29, 2021

This new $15 Raspberry Pi is like mana for at-home programming projects

It'll cost you $5 more than its predecessor


This new $15 Raspberry Pi is like mana for at-home programming projects

Raspberry Pi has released a new board called the Zero 2 W — and, excitingly, it costs just $15. It has more than five times more power than its predecessor, thanks to a new quad-core CPU.

This makes it ideal for building small media servers, pet monitors, or any number of similar development projects. Before we talk about how it compares with the Zero W, let’s take a look at its specifications.

Specifications

  • Broadcom BCM2710A1, quad-core 64-bit SoC (Arm Cortex-A53 @ 1GHz)
  • 512MB LPDDR2 SDRAM
  • 2.4GHz IEEE 802.11b/g/n wireless LAN, Bluetooth 4.2, BLE
  • 1 × USB 2.0 interface with OTG
  • HAT-compatible 40 pin I/O header footprint
  • MicroSD card slot
  • Mini HDMI port
  • Composite video and reset pin solder points
  • CSI-2 camera connector
  • H.264, MPEG-4 decode (1080p30); H.264 encode (1080p30)
  • OpenGL ES 1.1, 2.0 graphics

The previous version of the board only had one ARM-based core clocked at 1Ghz. What’s more, the new iteration also works on 64 bits, rather than sticking to the 32. Improved data processing, here we come.

The new version also supports a H.264 video decoder, so you can process full HD video stream at 30 frames per second.

Get the TNW newsletter

Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.

Published
Back to top