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  • cjs150 - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Windows 10 support is interesting. Now if MS will ensure windows media centre works (preferably with myMovies add ons) then you have a very nice HTPC. Yes I know XBMC is good, I like it but W8.1+WMC+MyMovies is a better HTPC solution for me for use from the sofa
  • alxx - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Supposedly no desktop with windows 10 for arm, metro only. Still waiting for confirmation that there will be gpu/vpu drivers
  • tabascosauz - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    I would look at something better if I were you. Sub-1GHz Cortex-A7 is not going to be an acceptable experience on Windows 8.1.
  • ddriver - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    Windows support is practically the least interesting aspect of this product. The hardware update was long overdue and will help the Pi stay relevant.
  • fel0niousmonk - Friday, February 6, 2015 - link

    that's odd. typically, wouldn't the long-overdue stuff that everyone expects be the least interesting, and the thing no one expected be the most interesting?
  • ddriver - Sunday, February 8, 2015 - link

    Because MS will botch it. When you hear "windows 10 support" you imagine full windows experience, while in reality the "IOT" windows flavor is merely a GPIO library you can target with visual studio, and it will in no way bridge the gap, on the contrary, it will cripple the device way beyond the kind of things you can do with it using Linux and a portable application framework such as Qt.

    Through its existence and status of perpetual monopoly, MS has actually done very little for the consumers, in fact it has abused its position to maximize its profits and market share at the expense of progress, not nourishing it but holding it hostage.
  • HardwareDufus - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Thanks for reporting on this.
    I'm a big user of Cortex-m3 and Cortex-m4 based microcontrollers.
    I have a couple of Rasberry Pi B+ models, but I've never found a purpose for them.
    This new Pi-2 model looks very interesting. Will be fun to play with the .NET for Devices framework on this guy in the near future.
  • Shivansps - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    If i want x86 Windows ill probably stick with that crappy VIA L2007 ITX board that sells for even less than the $35 that a R-PI costs.

    I hope that this move at least yield more ARM compatible Windows apps.
  • Oxford Guy - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Right now that thing is $59.40 at Newegg. The price keeps fluctuating wildly. It's an ancient 65nm single core chip that has a fan on it. The form factor is also considerably larger than the Raspberry.
  • eek2121 - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    You should buy it from one of their distributors, significantly cheaper to do so. I nabbed the new mobile from allied electronics, make sure you don't go to someone like amazon, several of the sellers are conning purchases into purchasing the older models by advertising them as Raspberry Pi 2s.
  • Shivansps - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    Yeah, today was a $33, now is back at $54...

    Yeah is old, but it was a $34 x86_64 board with satas, a lot more usbs, serial, VGA out and gblan, igp supporting OGL(noES)/DX9 and a max of 8GB of ram after all.
  • Wwhat - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link

    Same amount of USB, and you need to purchase that RAM extra of course, and get a appropriate PSU and case.

    But still though, you have a point.
  • jibz - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    "If Windows 10 can run on the Raspberry Pi 2, there isn’t anything stopping Microsoft from running it on Surface and Surface 2."

    You assume that the Windows 10 version for the Raspberry Pi 2 will be a "full" version of Windows, including a GUI. They only say that they will deliver "a version of Windows 10 that supports Raspberry Pi 2." This could be simply a shell and the basic libraries needed to use the Raspberry as a controller.
  • jeffkibuule - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Ditto. The version of Windows 10 appropriate for the Surface RT and Surface 2 actually has the desktop since they are larger than 8", which doesn't make much sense on those devices. Devices smaller than 8" will get a more Windows Phone-like UI, which is something ARM Surface devices weren't sold as.

    Of course, had the Surface RT and Surface 2 sold like gangbusters, we'd be have a different discussion, but I see little reason to pour more limited resources into those products.
  • domboy - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    My thoughts exactly... who in the world needs a "touch-optimized OS" on a Raspberry Pi?? It's not a tablet, it's a tiny computer for projects etc. Who is going to buy one to run Windows store apps? Maybe for use with a touch-screen Kiosk. But if you can't code for the basic low level APIs people are going to continue to use Linux on them. Besides, I thought Windows IoT was a very stripped down OS...
    http://dev.windows.com/en-us/featured/Windows-Deve...
  • fel0niousmonk - Friday, February 6, 2015 - link

    Should we be calling W10 a 'touch-optimized' OS, or a 'form-optimized' OS?

    What form does the Pi fit into? Or rather, it's inputs? Like you said, a kiosk is a potential use case - but it wouldn't have to be a touchable screen - it could be a Kinect-like interface (where touch-optimized is still good), or it could be a dumb library/bank/gas terminal where a hybrid UX might make sense. It could be an installation that requires/supports multiple input mediums. Right on the top of the IoT page it says "Utilize familiar Win32 programming using best in-class development and debugging tools." So what does that mean WRT ARM & the Pi?
  • Stephen Barrett - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Good point. updated the article
  • Wwhat - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link

    I think they should not have named the RT versions of windows the same a regular windows, it was a huge mistake from the get-go and continuing it would be insane.

    And most shops and their sites don't even specify it's tablet/ARM-windows, the just call it windows. And that isn't helping.

    As for the non-ARM surface devices, why would it be an issue installing windows10 on those? I think the windows8.1 drivers for the specialized aspects like the pen input are probably compatible.
  • Vepsa - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    I picked one up from Pimoroni to use as a PBX.
  • ToTTenTranz - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    "Projects such as Vero, ODRIOD, and Imagination’s CI20 have all differentiated themselves with much more powerful and modern CPUs, however at significantly higher prices."

    Actually, the ODROID-C1 costs the same as the new Raspberry, $35.
    It has an AmLogic S805, which has a quad-core Cortex A5 at 1.5GHz, dual-channel 1GB DDR3L memory, Mali 450MP2 GPU and dedicated H264/H265 decoder.
    It uses the same layout as the RPi 2/B+, including the 40-pin connector in the same place, with the same pinout.

    It should be a bit faster than the RPi 2 thanks to the higher core clocks and memory bandwidth, but of course the RPi 2 will be unbeatable in community support.
  • MrSpadge - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    I'm not so sure this ODROID C1 will be faster, A5 is a really tiny core.
  • hojnikb - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    But its not that slower than A7.
    It also clocks 600Mhz higher than Pi.
  • ddriver - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    C1 is faster and it has better features - analog IO, infrared, gigabit lan, eMMC

    The Pi has better software and learning materials.
  • DanNeely - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    At least in the low level integer benchmarks ARM publishes. the a5 has 82% of the per clock integer speed of the a7. On paper the faster clocks translate to a 37% edge over the rPi's CPU. OTOH DMIPS is about as friendly to simple cores as a benchmark can get. More real world workloads will probably favor the a7 more; but that's still a rather large clock gulf to get over.
  • Stephen Barrett - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Good point. updated the article
  • alxx - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    c1 also has builtin adc and on board rtc but no i2s and no hdmi cec support.
    pi 2 has hdmi cec and i2s but no rtc or adc.
    c1 has a much network transfer rate over pi2 and higher memory bandwidth (ddr3 vs lddr2)
    r pi2 uses usb ethernet (bandwidth shared with the other ports)

    For a nas one of these would be better with quad 1Gbe with 2GB ram, 256GB flash esata,microsd, msata and mpcie though the cpu is fairly sucky(only slightly better than r pi2/odroid c1)
    http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/01/30/online-labs...
    (need an anandtech review)

    comparison between r pi2 and odroid c1
    http://www.cnx-software.com/2015/02/02/raspberry-p...
  • hojnikb - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    >c1 also has builtin adc and on board rtc but no i2s and no hdmi cec support.

    Actually, c1 has cec support, there just ain't any drivers for it (yet).
  • steven75 - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    I want to know why I can buy a Spark Photon for $19 that comes with built-in WiFi but the Pi does not. The lack of WiFi drastically reduces the use cases I'd have for something like this.

    Yes, I know you can plug in a USB adapter but that's clunky and unnecessary when it can simply be built-in. At minimum they could make make a separate WiFi model for $5 more.
  • HunterKlynn - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Because a $19 Spark Photon is basically a wifi dongle in hardware? And because the Raspberry Pi is a low cost educational tool first, and a neat home computer second. Wifi isn't important.
  • coder543 - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    The Spark Photon is not running an ARM application processor with full MMU and GPU, it is running a microcontroller. This means it cannot do what the Pi does, it isn't even the same class of device. The comparison is moot.

    I would like to see WiFi as well, but the Photon won't be the reason it gets it, if it ever does.
  • Daniel Egger - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    I for one do not miss WiFi at all but OTOH it would be nice if we could finally get PoE support to get rid of the clunky power bricklets in odd places...
  • bfosterjr - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    He fact the Ms is leaving original windows RT owners in the wind is very disappointing. Please help out and sign this petition so we can at least let it die with some dignity

    http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/windows-rt-desk...

    Thanks!
    @bfosterjr
  • coder543 - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Now that the Pi 2 is running on armv7, it should easily be able to run Android, and very soon. Windows will not be on the Pi 2 for some months, so Android will likely beat it to market handily as the most touch optimized OS.
  • Stephen Barrett - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Good point. updated the article
  • Penti - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    There's no problem running Android on ARMv6 either. Less work to get running though.
  • OreoCookie - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Does anyone know how the quad-core Cortex A7 compares to the dual-core Marvell Armada XP found in my Synology NAS?
  • Penti - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Previous embedded ARM-variant was simply Windows Phone (WE8.1H) and for use with Windows Phone apps. Hope they improve the IOT version. Has heard talk of command line apps.
  • adamericson - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    I have 2 pis
    Model B 256 mb and b 512mb
    I run both with raspbmc and it looks like ill buy the new pi as well.
    Thought about a cubox i but now there is now point it costs 4x more for pretty much the same thing.. Can you check how kodi runs on it? And do a pi1 vs pi2 test?
  • alxx - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    kodi is already runs on pi 2 , for openelec need the latest builds with new kernel the beta is already up on http://openelec.tv/get-openelec

    http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=217040&...
  • dgingeri - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    What annoys me is the fact that Microsoft is making a version of Windows 10 for this little thing, but apparently can't make one for my Dell XPS10, which runs WinRT 8.1.
  • Manabu - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    Is the Broadcom BCM2836 made at the same process node than the Broadcom BCM2835 or they have moved up to something newer like 28nm?
  • lmcd - Monday, February 2, 2015 - link

    So many things wrong in both the article and the comments.

    Windows 10 IoT officially will support Windows 10 Universal Apps. Tegra 3, as of Windows 8.1, runs Windows very well. Little to no slowdown in the key Windows functionality, Word 2013 doesn't exhibit the typing issue mentioned in the Surface review, games such as Hydro Thunder Hurricane run (albeit on lowest settings) with no slowdown.

    Is the pessimism necessary?
  • Penti - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    As does Windows Embedded 8.1 Handheld Edition based on Windows Phone on ARM devices when it comes to "universal" apps made for phones. Don't abuse the word they use, Universal apps means you need to code (only part of the project is fully shared) and compile for the device. It's also the term they used for when you distribute an app on multiple platforms but it can be completely different programs that don't share anything. Details aren't available yet but they will probably continue down the current track and the IoT-product is likely based on the phone variant – the true phone-variant will also contain the older Silverlight and Windows Phone Runtime frameworks/runtime and while W8.1 and WP8.1 supports universal windows runtime apps with shared code you still need to customize it some because there's still a few API differences, you need to build different UI's and so on.

    Thus it will probably be a variant of Windows Runtime the same runtime that powers modern apps. But that doesn't mean you won't have to make changes for it to run. It's pretty clear that they will be different SKU's of Windows. So don't get lost in marketing fluff.

    They need to do more to truly make it interesting. But when it comes to hobbyists Microsoft can take it's time.
  • lmcd - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    The point was that the "stripped down" Windows is in fact rather full-featured and not just "a command line and tools" as one commenter suggested, and that a quad-core A7 can run Windows just fine, contrary to what the article author wrote.

    It's like if Anandtech came out with an article claiming that Dalvik was too inefficient for wearables. Sure, it is, but Google using Dalvik today is just as reasonable as Microsoft using their 1.0 ARM .NET Runtime.
  • Penti - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    Well I wouldn't expect it to run full media center software – does doesn't do much when it comes to store apps, but a capable Windows Runtime stack is obviously there.
  • boy3dfx - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    A few typos in the article.

    First the amount of PIs sold seems to me to be 2.5 million, not 4.5: http://blog.broadcom.com/raspberry-pi/happy-birthd...

    Second, the link in the "Projecys like Vero, ODIOD, ..." spells ODRIOD instead of ODROID :)

    Other than that, a very cool article. Thanks for posting it.

    I am waiting to hear more especially on the Windows front (and motorola lapdock type connectivity).
  • dmunsie - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    The link you provided is from a year ago (Feb 28, 2014). The Raspberry Pi Foundation reported 3 million sold back in June of 2014 (http://www.raspberrypi.org/raspberry-pi-at-bucking... and there is a CNET article from October saying 3.8 million that uses the Raspberry Pi Foundation as a source (http://www.zdnet.com/article/raspberry-pi-sales-ed...

    I don't think it's much of a stretch that they would have sold 4.5 million by now.
  • t.s. - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    "..Reaching the $35 price point was difficult however.."
    It's not that difficult, actually. Just cut your profit. A company that is not larger than raspberry pi foundation can sell it at that price point too, with somehow better spec.
    http://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info....
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  • Hyper72 - Tuesday, February 3, 2015 - link

    I'm guessing Microsoft doesn't see this as a mass market end user device but rather as a cheap development board for testing on hardware target before final testing and deployment elsewhere.

    Possibly they'd also like to see schools teach with a windows dev chain/target to condition the future engineers.
  • Wolfpup - Wednesday, February 4, 2015 - link

    The Windows 10 support thing is awesome, except...why aren't we getting it for the Surface 1 and 2 again?
  • gfkBill - Thursday, February 5, 2015 - link

    "4x Cortex-A7s at 900 MHz will be a new low for Windows"
    900MHz quad? Luxury! When I were lad, we had 20MHz for our Windows, and we were happy.

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