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Raspberry Pi 2 Hands On and Review (In Progress)

Assassin
By Assassin
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So I just got my Raspberry Pi 2 from Element 14. I ordered it when it within the hour of its release and its finally here. As I install more packages and get time to play with it a little more I will slowly update this review. Here are some pictures and initial impressions. 

 

The highlights of the Raspberry Pi 2 compared to the older moldels are:

 

i) Quad Core Broadcom ARM V7 based Processor clocked at 900 MHz

 

ii) 1 GB of SDRAM at 450 MHz

 

You can read more about it here.

 

The box:

post-18995-0-68425200-1423090319_thumb.j

 

The Raspberry Pi:

post-18995-0-43916100-1423090340_thumb.j

 

I installed Raspbian to start with. Needless to say it runs very well. Web browsing was fairly smooth. It also included a minecraft game specifically for the pi and it ran pretty smooth as well.

 

Video Playback:

Video playback using the included web browser is awful. Just forget about it. Chromium and Ice Weasel (Firefox) equally suck at playing any kind of video. VLC is not working  either. The only thing that worked Amazingly was the included Omxplayer in Raspbian but it has to be run from terminal and has no GUI. A test sample of 1080 video ran very smoothly and without and hiccups. Online streaming using Omxplayer was great as well. Youtube was absolutely horrible. 

 

Web Browsing

Web browsing is a mixed bag. You can forget about video playback altogether. I really hope this is an optimization issue. For general web browsing using the included web browser the experience is okay. Very plugin heavy sites will be difficult to run. 

 

UI

UI is fairly clunky but with a little bit of poking around its usable. I'm using Raspbian. 

 

 

Next Up:

I will be installing more software for server use and update my impressions. Also I will be overclocking this thing to see what its capable of.

 

For now I think this is a solid little device for $35 and worth buying if you wanna tinker with or learn linux. 

post-18995-0-68425200-1423090319_thumb.j

post-18995-0-43916100-1423090340_thumb.j

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

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What's happening in terms of windows 10? is it just a free download or do you have to pay for it when it's ready? 

CPU: Intel 3570 GPUs: Nvidia GTX 660Ti Case: Fractal design Define R4  Storage: 1TB WD Caviar Black & 240GB Hyper X 3k SSD Sound: Custom One Pros Keyboard: Ducky Shine 4 Mouse: Logitech G500

 

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What's happening in terms of windows 10? is it just a free download or do you have to pay for it when it's ready? 

Free for Raspberry Pi two. But at this point we don't know the details of the OS or what it will include.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

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Free for Raspberry Pi two. But at this point we don't know the details of the OS or what it will include.

daing, id get the raspberry pie 2, take the os to my pc, and boom, htpc weith the pie and linux !  all for 30$

~New~  BoomBerryPi project !  ~New~


new build log : http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/533392-build-log-the-scrap-simulator-x/?p=7078757 (5 screen flight sim for 620$ CAD)LTT Web Challenge is back ! go here  :  http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/448184-ltt-web-challenge-3-v21/#entry601004

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What's happening in terms of windows 10? is it just a free download or do you have to pay for it when it's ready? 

From what I heard it's going to be free. Also, I'm thinking of getting one purely for the purpose of linux/windows 10 and attaching it to the back of my TV and getting a real smart TV for 35$. Already got a small wireless keyboard with a touchpad. :D

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From what I heard it's going to be free. Also, I'm thinking of getting one purely for the purpose of linux/windows 10 and attaching it to the back of my TV and getting a real smart TV for 35$. Already got a small wireless keyboard with a touchpad. :D

I guess chrome-cast would be a good option, but I prefer the DIY route, get knowledge out of it and something probably more functional in the end. 

CPU: Intel 3570 GPUs: Nvidia GTX 660Ti Case: Fractal design Define R4  Storage: 1TB WD Caviar Black & 240GB Hyper X 3k SSD Sound: Custom One Pros Keyboard: Ducky Shine 4 Mouse: Logitech G500

 

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I guess chrome-cast would be a good option, but I prefer the DIY route, get knowledge out of it and something probably more functional in the end. 

Agreed, besides if windows 10 turns out to run good on ARM it's going to be a blast! But it's going to be very versatile, linux distros, windows 10, android etc. I'd just buy a small heatsink, OC it most likely and run it as a passive cooled smart tv and get another one for experimenting! :D

They also claimed that it would OC really well, will have to wait and see, but this is really awesome for 35$, I mean Android sticks for smart TV's are 60$ and more.

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the first gen could hardly run android. assuming this is 6x faster, thats a massive jump. think of it. if it was getting 10 fps, now it will get 60.

 

means, if the first gen could hit 5 fps, it would be very usable. especially if it was for a video box running android. and now the newest version is made to run on phones with 512mb of ram easily, with a pi you have twice that. very exciting! 

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Moar processing powah = good

 

Errybody happy

CPU: AMD FX-6300 4GHz @ 1.3 volts | CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO | RAM: 8GB DDR3

Motherboard: Gigabyte 970A-DS3P | GPU: EVGA GTX 960 SSC | SSD: 250GB Samsung 850 EVO

HDD: 1TB WD Caviar Green | Case: Fractal Design Core 2500 | OS: Windows 10 Home

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-poof-

can you get the dimensions  of the cpu and ram for me? As while as the distance between the two? plz :)

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daing, id get the raspberry pie 2, take the os to my pc, and boom, htpc weith the pie and linux !  all for 30$

the windows 10 implementation on rp2 will be for armv7 CPUs.  Unless you have some magical ARM PC that won't work

Want a good game to play?  Check out Shadowrun: http://store.steampowered.com/app/300550/ (runs on literally any hardware)

 

another 12 core / 24 thread senpai...     (/. _ .)/     \(. _ .\)

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So I just got my Raspberry Pi 2 from Element 14. I ordered it when it within the hour of its release and its finally here. As I install more packages and get time to play with it a little more I will slowly update this review. Here are some pictures and initial impressions. 

 

The highlights of the Raspberry Pi 2 compared to the older moldels are:

 

a) Quad Core Broadcom ARM V7 based Processor clocked at 900 MHz

 

B) 1 GB of RAM DDR2 at 450 MHz

 

You can read more about it here.

 

The box:

attachicon.gif2015-02-04 17.46.44.jpg

 

The Raspberry Pi:

attachicon.gif2015-02-04 22.48.14.jpg

 

I installed Raspbian to start with. Needless to say it runs very well. Web browsing was fairly smooth. It also included a minecraft game specifically for the pi and it ran pretty smooth as well.

 

Next Up:

I will be installing more software for server use and update my impressions. Also I will be overclocking this thing to see what its capable of.

 

For now I think this is a solid little device for $35 and worth buying if you wanna tinker with or learn linux. 

DDR2 = wat

Want a good game to play?  Check out Shadowrun: http://store.steampowered.com/app/300550/ (runs on literally any hardware)

 

another 12 core / 24 thread senpai...     (/. _ .)/     \(. _ .\)

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DDR2 = wat

oops. I forgot its SDRAM

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

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Im pretty excited about this, its arrival time is perfect for a project Im about to start, basically ill use 2 for ease or programming. 1 as a HTPC and 1 for a arcade machine. Should be fun!

My VERY Watercooled R4 'BOTW' | [WIP] StreamMachine Build Log | ARCADE-D2 | [WIP] NCASE MiniValidus Build Log | DIY AMBILIGHT Tutorial

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Can it now run a GUI shell without lagging? I don't have big hope for the raspberry pi as its not powerful enough for a modern operating system and not dumb enough for embedded stuff.

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Can it now run a GUI shell without lagging? I don't have big hope for the raspberry pi as its not powerful enough for a modern operating system and not dumb enough for embedded stuff.

I imagine it would run as well as you would expect it would for its hardware. Where the Pi ecosystem seems to shine is IOT's but a PC replacement? Not really, but that's all subjective on what you do with your PC.

My VERY Watercooled R4 'BOTW' | [WIP] StreamMachine Build Log | ARCADE-D2 | [WIP] NCASE MiniValidus Build Log | DIY AMBILIGHT Tutorial

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can you get the dimensions  of the cpu and ram for me? As while as the distance between the two? plz :)

I haven't measured the dimentions yet but RAM seems to be on the back of the board.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

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