Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W Available at the Price of $15

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced the release to market the Zero 2 W, its new mini-PC tiny size and low cost coming to happen to the Raspberry Pi Zero W.

The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W costs just US $15, so, in the foundation’s words, “it perfectly embodies our mission to give people access to tools and remove the cost barrier. ” Previous versions of this mini-PC have shown that it is a good component to build devices such as mechanical fans to cope with harsh contexts such as the one we have experienced with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The low cost and the size of the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W are factors that obviously determine its characteristics, so one has to be aware of what one is buying in case of buying it. For example, the SoC is a Broadcom BCM2710A1, the same as the one used by the Raspberry Pi 3, but with the core frequency reduced from 1.2GHz to 1GHz. As regards RAM, 512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM has been incorporated. Without further ado, we are going to expose all the main features in the following list:

• Broadcom BCM2710A1 SoC, which has four physical 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 cores running at 1GHz.
• 512MB of SDRAM LPDDR2.
• 2.4GHz IEEE 802.11b / g / n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2 and Bluetooth Low Energy.
• A USB 2.0 interface with OTG.
• 40-pin compatible HAT.
• A microSD slot.
• One mini-HDMI port.
• Composite video and reset pin solder points.
• A CSI-2 camera connector.
• H.264 support to decode MPEG4 at 1080p and 30fps and render with H.264 at 1080p and 30fps.
• OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0 graphics support.

An interesting fact is that “almost all cases and accessories designed for Zero should work perfectly with the new board” , including the Raspberry Pi own case and the selection of cables created for these mini-PCs.

The foundation has also launched a USB power supply for the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and the 3B and 3B + models at the price of 8 dollars, with variants adapted to the different plug formats used around the world. It is similar to the power supply available for the Raspberry Pi 4, but swapping the USB Type-C connector for a USB micro-B and “with a slightly reduced maximum current rating of 2.5 amps. “

Vulkan 1.1 Graphics API Certified for Raspberry Pi 4

The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W has not arrived alone, but accompanied by the announcement by Canonical that Ubuntu Server 21.10 already supports the mini-PC. For now, only the 32-bit image works by default, but the company expects to have 64-bit support ready in the next few days and the Ubuntu version 20.04 image for the month of November. All these movements are linked, of course, to Canonical’s strategy around the Internet of Things.

Those who are interested can buy the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W from the foundation’s official store at the aforementioned price of $15 and check all the details published in the official announcement. We leave you with the video presentation of the mini-PC.