The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is the successor to the first Raspberry Pi Zero, which was released nearly six years ago.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation released the $10 Zero W a few years after the $5 Zero, which adds wifi and Bluetooth capabilities to the tiny single-board computer (SBC).
“However, unlike our bigger devices, which have constantly become more powerful over time, we’ve never been able to squeeze more performance into the Zero form factor.” Until now,” says Eben Upton, CEO of Raspberry Pi Ltd and the original Raspberry Pi’s developer, as he introduces the Zero 2 W.
Tiny powerhouse
The new SBC measures 65mm x 30mm and packs a 1GHZ quad-core CPU that Upton claims delivers five times the performance of its predecessor.
The new board, which costs $15, utilises the same Broadcom BCM2710A1 SoC silicon as the $35 Raspberry Pi 3, but with a 1GHz clock speed and 512MB of LPDDR2 SDRAM.
The Zero 2 W, like the Zero W, has both wireless and Bluetooth connection. There’s a microSD card slot, CSI-2 camera connection, USB 2.0 on-the-go (OTG) port, mini-HDMI port, and 40-pin GPIO header for physical communication.
The Zero 2 W is a drop-in replacement for the original Zero and Zero W, which means it will work with the majority of the Zero’s existing accessories.