Raspberry Pi 2 launches with 6x faster processor and Windows 10 promise

UK-built system-on-a-chip upgraded for a broader audience beyond education sector

The Raspberry Pi Foundation revealed the official second edition of its Raspberry Pi SOC (system-on-a-chip) computer today, promising speed increases of up to six times, and compatibility with upcoming ARM builds of Windows 10.

Founder Eben Upton said that the foundation is now targeting users beyond the education sector that was originally the target of the Pi in 2012, and is "hoping to have people buying this as the second PC in their house". He hopes to continue to serve the hobbyist and - increasingly - the enterprise market with the cheap yet reliable machines, too.

Upton said that between 2 million and 2.5 million Raspberry Pi units - which are now largely built in the UK - had been sold in 2014 and that it would "be nice to keep that up".

The Raspberry Pi 2 Model B consists of a quad-core ARMv7 Broadcom BCM2836 processor running at 900MHz, supported by 1GB RAM, four USB 2.0 ports, a full-size HDMI out visual display port, micro-USB power source and a micro-SD port for storing data and loading an operating system.

Because the chip is built on the ARMv7 architecture and not ARMv6 as in previous models of the Raspberry Pi, Upton explained how this "broadens out the range of operating systems" available for the machine.

This includes Canonical's popular Ubuntu Linux operating system, which, said Upton, "a lot of people had wanted since the first day", and also Windows 10 - "which I think is going to raise a few eyebrows," he laughed.

"We've been working with Microsoft for about the last six months to enable Windows 10 on Raspberry Pi. It runs - I've seen it running - and it's pretty cool."

He continued: "The intention here is to have a device you can use to build [Windows] RT devices with screens attached. And it participates in the broad range of Windows APIs, so it can take Windows 10 applications you can run on a Surface, on a PC or on a Windows mobile phone."

While this of course means the Raspberry Pi will only run the ARM-friendly "RT" build of Windows 10 - the exact capabilities of which are still shrouded in mystery as Microsoft focuses on the Win32 desktop PC builds for current previews - Microsoft has recently been making increasingly positive noises about sharing APIs.

Computing asked Upton whether the increasing number of options - the new Pi 2 Model B joins the Model A, Model B and Model B+ - may serve to confuse the Pi's stated target market and thus decrease uptake of the device in the education sector.

"There's only ever one product that we promote at one time to that market segment," replied Upton. "And that was the B+ until today, and now it's the Raspberry Pi 2."

He continued: "So there's the hobby and industrial product line, but there's only ever one thing a teacher will recognise. So it is an issue, but I think you'll see on our homepage that though the B+ and the B remain sellable models, we'll drop the B+ [as an option promoted to educators]."