“This is a definite upgrade from the previous zero.
Much smoother to work with.
I don't run a desktop, normally ssh.
This seems much better as there are more core's so even with ssh and other activities ongoing the zero 2 keeps running smoothly.
The ram is still 0.5GB which may limit some processes. However, any heavyweight stuff can be offloaded to a more powerful host, if needed.
With the extra performance however, I haven't needed to do that.
What I do like is that the power consumption is only slightly more than the original pi zero, and much less than any of the full pi's. This is great for portability or devices that you want uptime for 24/7, as this will save energy and costs.
I did have some weirdness after a vanilla install of Buster where ssh would lock up, a quick edit in the ssh and sshd configs resolved that, that never happened on the previous zero.
I have tried a standard pi desktop (Buster) on it and was surprised as it worked well enough to browse the web and get Gmail. I also managed to watch BBC iPlayer, YouTube didn't work well though. None full screen at 1080.
But you are not likely to be buying for that. Worth noting though it can perform very basic desktop stuff. The previous zero was pretty useless at it and web was so slow or fail I never bothered with it.
So if in a tight spot yes pop in a desktop and you can get email basic web and Google office suite up and running sort of smoothly. If that makes sense.
When running the zero it gets slightly warmer than the original zero, but not too hot to touch. Cou temp in region of 50c when maxed up with no cooling needed.
The for factor is the same but some components are in different places so may not fit in those hugging cases that get close and personal to the main board.
I also see that the CPU is slightly different position, so any integrated cooler case may need to be checked prior to using, not that I have found any need for more cooling.
So it's a great device, a little less power than 3b+ but way mor grunt than a standard zero.
I fully recommend this device especially given the cost to performance it has.”
“Excellent little board for the price. I used mine as a print server. Boots much faster and speed is much better than original pi zero. Well worth the upgrade price”
“I upgraded my zero w to this one, for running Klipper on my ender 3 pro, and by the gods, the difference is absolutely palpable!
Faster boot times, snappier response times, and overall a much better experience. It feels much more like running the tasks on a pi3b than a zero.
I'll definitely be reallocating my regular w's to more basic tasks now, and am itching to find projects to use this new 0w2 with.”
“Much faster than the older one - see Explainingcomputers on YouTube. I use it to control heating. Two things to note - the Wifi goes into power save mode, which can be inconvenient if waiting for UDP packets to arrive. It's easy to switch off power-save mode. The other thing to note is that it won't work with Noobs. Pimoroni customer service needed to point me to the latest download.”
