New Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. © Raspberry Pi Foundation.

It was high time to refresh the little Raspberry Pi Zero’s specs, last updated in 2017 with the Zero W. On Thursday, Eben Upton, co-founder of Raspberry Pi, announced the new Pi Zero 2 W, priced at US$ 15 (or US$ 5 more than the previous model), which has the processor of the Raspberry Pi 3 (the Broadcom SoC BCM2710A1, but with ARM cores slightly slowed down at 1 GHz) and 512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM on a card the size of the original Zero. Almost all cases and accessories designed for the Zero should therefore work seamlessly with this new card.

To pair with the Zero 2 W, the Foundation is launching a new USB power supply priced at US$ 8. It looks a lot like the power supply of the Raspberry Pi 4, but with a microB USB connector instead of the USBC connector, and with a peak current slightly reduced to 2.5 A. The new Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is available for purchase now from the network of authorized dealers. If you are a subscriber to The MagPi, you will receive a free Zero 2 W within the next few days. Eben warns, however, that the number of units offered for sale is limited due to the semiconductor shortage. The Foundation plans to ship around 200,000 units this year, with another 250,000 to follow in the first half of 2022. Zero and Zero W cards are still in the catalog.

⇨ YouTube, “NEW Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W”

⇨ Ars Technica, Andrew Cunningham, “Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W: 5x faster than the original for $5 more.”

2021-10-28