“I wanted to use it as a thin client (RDP) for remote accessing my work PC and recently discovered that you can have (almost decent quality) sound via the RDP link. As the rpi02w doesn't have a sound output I wanted to use Bluetooth for this task and it almost worked but it disconnected repeatedly over wifi so if you want this solution you need a usb-to-ethernet dongle. I've bought from Aliexpress the HUBBOX that has an ethernet port as well so probably I'll use it this way but it's a pity it doesn't have the wifi chip of rpi3b+ with 5GHz capabilities (wifi5). Maybe some tunning on wifi can be done but this is all I had time for until now.”
“After a long wait for the RPi zero 2 to become available, the email notification from The PiHut was received with excitement. Delivery was swift as usual.
I wanted to give a high level review rather than something too technical in hope that this would be useful to a much broader reach of readers
Now for the RPi zero 2…
We have developed a product based on the the RPi zero, taking advantage of the cost point. The trade off was always performance, that said the product was still very useable. When we got news of the RPI zero 2, we were super exited to try one and it did not disappoint.
With the RPI zero 2 being 100% hardware compatible to its predecessor both in form factor, connections and hardware interfaces, our application ran perfectly with no software changes needed. A big plus point!
The boot time is around 30 seconds for a desktop application as our application is, it’s predecessor took around 90 seconds.
The GUI application runs very responsive and fluid with access to the 4 cores. Our application uses the Hyperpixel 4.0 (https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-screens/products/hyperpixel) display with capacitive touch.
So what are the drawbacks…
We’ll to be honest not many. The main observation we made was with the supply current. For our application on a RPi zero, the current consumption for the Pi was around 180mA, that has now jumped to around 360mA. For our application that means a shorter battery life as a trade off. However we are hoping to improve on that with some power optimisation.
So all in all my verdict is that this a must for new applications especially if GUI based, it really does give a step change in performance to its predecessor. That’s not to say that the RPi Zero is redundant. We have a number of them which we can see good use for in other applications.
I hope readers find the insightful and good for thought when choosing a Raspberry Pi.
Andy Long
MD of DaniHar Technology
danihar.com”
“First Raspberry pi. Bought the preloaded micro and card (32gb) a few adapters and a flirc case. I now use it as my main computer. When back in stock will buy more.”
