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.
