Raspberry Pi 2 announced with improved tech, same cost, and Windows 10

The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced the successor to its massively popular Raspberry Pi launched in 2012: The Raspberry Pi 2. The Raspberry Pi 2 will improve upon the original with a more powerful processor and more RAM, but will retain the small size and $35 price that made the original such a hit. The Raspberry Pi 2 is available now from distributor Element14’s website, as well as all other Raspberry Pi distributors.

The Raspberry Pi 2 distinguishes itself from the original with a quad-core ARMv7 processor clocked at 900MHz (though the foundation says it will be overclockable), and 1GB of RAM. The 2012 Raspberry Pi had a single-core ARMv6 at 700MHz and only 512 MB of RAM. Like the original, the Pi 2 supports up to four USB connections and one Micro SD card slot, which all fit on a small green board.

Microsoft has also announced support for the new Raspberry Pi with a free version of the upcoming Windows 10 operating system. They said in a press statement that they will have more to announce “in the coming months.”

Though the original Raspberry Pi was mostly talked about on hacking websites and forums, as well as among DIY groups, educators were one of the primary groups that ended up adopting it the most. The foundation thinks it will be no different this time. “You’re going to see the most celebration from the hackers and the makers because they’re clamoring for better performance, but I don’t think the education realm realizes how much they’re going to like it too,” Pi evangelist Matt Richardson told The Verge.

The Raspberry Pi has been used at many forward-thinking schools over the past few years to teach students coding and getting them involved in electronics projects. The Raspberry Pi Foundation hopes that with this new version, students will have a more positive experience with the hardware now that it’s more responsive. Previously, the foundation claimed that a new version of the hardware was still “a few years out,” but clearly that’s changed. According to another statement he gave to The Verge, Richardson said the computer was just ready “sooner than expected.” He also said everything designed to work for the original Pi should work for the new model without any problems, save for a few “edge cases.”