Raspberry Pi Foundation releases Pi Zero 2 W with quad-core soc and 512MB ram

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. The successor to the small single-board computer has a quad-core processor and twice as much RAM as its predecessor. The 2 W also has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 on board.

The Pi Zero 2 W is the successor to the original Pi Zero from 2015. The new single-board computer has the same form factor as the previous Pi, with 40 I/O pins, a MicroSD card reader and a mini HDMI port. The most important innovation is that the computer must be much faster. Unlike the single-core soc that the original Pi Zero still used, the Pi Zero 2 W has the same Broadcom BCM2710A1 that the Raspberry Pi 3 had. It is a quad-core CPU with four Arm Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1GHz. The memory has also been expanded; the Zero 2 W has 512MB of Lpddr2 sdram.

The new singleboard has WiFi on board, just like the Pi Zero W from 2017. As a result, users are no longer at the mercy of a USB-to-Ethernet connection. The Zero 2 W has Wi-Fi 4 802.11b/g/n at 2.4GHz on board. Also, users can connect devices via Bluetooth 4.2 BLE.

The device is powered by a 5V/2.5A charger via the USB ports. Those are still micro-USB ports and not USB-C connections. In addition to the Pi, the makers also come with its own power supply with a micro-USB connector. It should also work with the older Raspberry Pi 3B or 3B+.

The Pi Zero W 2 retails for $15. Some retailers sell the device for 17.95 euros. The Raspberry Pi Foundation warns that the computer may become difficult to obtain. The foundation will sell 200,000 copies this year. An additional 250,000 units will be added in the first half of next year.