This is what not giving a shit about your product looks like
It’s no secret that there’s a massive Raspberry Pi shortage right now for consumers due to the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s strategy of allocating boards to business and IoT projects first and then official resellers get whatever is left. Since I own one of every Raspberry Pi that has ever been made I ended up buying one of these scalped from eBay for about $57 (all the way from Europe) which is much better than the street price of $80-$90+ I can get it in the United States.
In other words I payed the scalpers to get my hands on this board so you don’t have to and let me tell you folks, it is honestly garbage and literally the dumbest purchase I’ve ever made. Today I will show and explain why the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 is the lamest and most disappointing product release that the Raspberry Pi Foundation has ever done. Let’s get started!
Hardware Used
Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W
The Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is the successor to the Raspberry Pi Zero. It has a quad-core CPU which is substantially faster than the Pi Zero but is otherwise almost identical.
This won’t take long at all. The CPU was upgraded from a single-core BCM2835 (the CPU of the Raspberry Pi 1) in the Pi Zero W to a quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 processor.
This is a nice CPU upgrade at least if you can get this board from an authorized reseller at non-scalped prices (you won’t any time soon). Credit where credit is due. The CPU definitely needed an upgrade / refresh.
Missing Expected New Features
Let’s talk about the obvious things that they did not fix in this board from the Pi Zero / Pi Zero W.
One limitation of the Pi Zero W is that it cannot do 5 GHz wireless. It can only do 2.4 GHz wireless. Given how many people use the Pi Zero W in projects that need wireless capabilities this is the #1 fix I was expecting. Did they fix it?
The answer to that question is no they did not. The Pi Zero 2 W *still* cannot do 5 GHz wireless. Ugh.
Okay, well surely they got rid of microUSB given that is 2022 and microUSB is complete garbage. Finally we can have a USB-C Pi Zero 2!
Nope. It’s still microUSB 100%. There’s no USB-C. Ugh.
How about eMMC storage then? An eMMC option is dead obvious to add to this board and makes sense for such a small board like this. They added them in the Compute Module 4 lineup and I’m fully expecting the Raspberry Pi 5 to have available eMMC options as well.
Wrong. There are no eMMC options available for the Pi Zero 2. Ugh.
But…. surely they at least upgraded the RAM past 512 MB. It had 512 MB of RAM 5 years ago in the Pi Zero, there’s no way they didn’t upgrade it!
Wrong again, of course they didn’t! The Pi Zero 2 has 512 MB of RAM AGAIN and there will be no larger options available (according to Raspberry Pi). Don’t believe me? Here it is from their own release information about the board:
Will there be a version of Zero 2 W with 1GB of SDRAM?
No. 1GB LPDDR2 monodie are not available, and producing a SiP with two stacked SDRAM dice would be very challenging.
Wow. They are saying that producing a board with 1 GB of RAM would be “very challenging”. Is this a joke?
How did the Raspberry Pi Foundation even get this far? You know what is more challenging than that? Creating a credit card sized computer or even smaller in the case of the Raspberry Pi Zero when nobody has ever done it before.
The fact that these things are “very challenging” did not used to stop them. Why is it now? Keep reading and we’ll see if we can figure it out by the end of the article.
Quality Control
There is a visible decline in quality control on the board. It’s very obvious that corners are being cut. I own every Raspberry Pi going back to the very beginning and to be honest you can kind of see the process of this happening over the years. The Pi Zero 2 W though takes this to a whole new level and is a sharp, sharp decline in quality though over some of the other corner cutting.
For an obvious example (that you will be able to find on your board as well from what I’ve seen should you get one of these) take a look at the edges of the board:
Pi Zero vs. Pi Zero 2 – Edge Quality Control
I wanted to show the Zero W (top) vs. the Zero 2 W (bottom).
Notice that the Pi Zero W has a much less pronounced and cleaner edge. That is because they actually cared when they made that board and got rid of most of the perforation in the board with a grinder or some tool meant to take off the rough edges.
On the Pi Zero 2 they did not bother to do this. It’s so bad there are hairs fraying off on the board (you can see these hairs hanging down in the above picture not far from the Zero 2 W label). Orange Pi wouldn’t be caught dead shipping even a $6 board that looked like this. I’ve never seen anyone ship a board that looks like this. Ever.
Here’s another look:
Pi Zero 2 Quality Control
Look at all of those “hairs” fraying off the board and how rough and uneven that edge is. Unbelievable. This is the definition of not even trying.
Remember that I paid $57 for this board and you will pay even more if you want one today off eBay.
Pros / Cons
Pros
Quad-core CPU is a nice upgrade from the original (but the only one)
Cons
Extremely expensive to actually get your hands on
Identical to previous Pi Zero other than the CPU
Drop in build quality from previous generation
Conclusion
I hate it. I hate that it’s so obvious that the quality continues to decline on these boards and that they no longer take any pride in making them or put forth any effort to make sure it’s clear it’s a higher quality product than their competitors. It really isn’t anymore.
I hate that a company that started out with the goal of providing low cost computers to people now only sells them to industry insiders meaning the street prices are $80-$90. It’s even worse that they have stuck to this even seeing what it has done to the consumer market for Pis.
I hate that they passed over the most obvious upgrades for the board such as 1 GB of RAM, 5 GHz WiFi and USB-C. It annoys me even more that they said it was because it would “very challenging”. Again, there is no Raspberry Pi Foundation if they can’t take on “very challenging” problems anymore. It’s just another company milking us dry with a name brand.
I honestly see the terrible new NVIDIA 4000 series GPUs as a really similar problem to what is happening to Raspberry Pi. They’ve had people willing to buy their stuff at any price for so long no matter how many they produce that they don’t really have to try. And they aren’t.
If you are going to try to defend this board to me (and Raspberry Pi’s current practices) I’d really challenge you to ask yourself if you are looking at this board objectively or if you are a fanboy. I didn’t write this because I hate Raspberry Pi and I’ve done tons of Pi work over the years. It’s just objectively a lazy and bad product with some rookie quality control issues going on. I wrote this because I want them to do better and it makes me sick to see releases like this.
Price-Dependent Experience
The main problem with this board is that unless you pre-ordered it you are not going to get it for $15 unless you are using the tools that let you know which authorized resellers have them in stock (and by using I mean constantly throughout the day because when they come in stock they’re gone in minutes often times).
If you got this board for $15 you will probably be pretty happy. spinspin on reddit pointed out to me (after giving me a proper reddit trolling, which I forgive him for after our discussion) in a fair criticism of my review that “separating disappointment from the process of judging what the product actually is makes more sense.”.
Well, it’s hard to deny I didn’t separate my disappointment from what the product actually is. He’s right. I’d like to add this section to explain what the product actually is, dispassionately. It’s essentially a Pi Zero W with a quad-core processor. It doesn’t really have any additional capabilities. I don’t recommend getting it unless you are running very heavy loads and absolutely require the quad-core to make your project/use case work.
The reason I don’t recommend it is that the Pi Zero 2 is roughly twice as expensive as the Pi Zero and is not an upgrade that justifies the cost outside of the specific quad-core CPU benefiting a heavy-load project. If you are able to get it for $15 through an authorized reseller (now or in the future) then this is a nicely refreshed Pi Zero W (but with no additional capabilities) albeit with some build quality corner cutting (perhaps justified for whatever reasons). I covered all the things that they did not add in the Pi Zero 2 but I suspect we will see these in the Pi Zero 3 (or at least some of them).
The quality control issues are concerning but shouldn’t impact the functionality of the board. Let’s just hope they don’t continue in that direction as part of the reason I love Raspberry Pi’s was their build quality (especially historically, all my old ones still work 100%).
Exploring Alternatives
It’s pretty clear to me that Raspberry Pi has become like Apple and NVIDIA. Most people seem to be willing to defend this. I’m not. I think this board is my breakup with Raspberry Pi. I’ll likely not be doing a lot of Raspberry Pi content going forward as it’s just no longer a community I recognize or respect. They apparently *love* what Raspberry Pi is doing no matter what it is. I’m the first one off the train when things get cultish and are no longer about the hardware or technology.
This site is about technology and hardware though. I’ll be doing my best to bring attention to alternative products and ecosystems here as well as supporting projects to provide an affordable and quality alternative to the Raspberry Pi. See the “Other Resources” section for work already done on this.
Unfortunately Raspberry Pi is not where interesting developments are happening anymore in the SBC world for now. If the Raspberry Pi 5 looks a lot better then I’ll definitely cover that but I’m definitely a “wait and see” at this point for Raspberry Pi. I’ve made my voice heard on this board and the direction of Raspberry Pi. I don’t intend to keep talking about it though (that was just to try to help them correct course).
Now it’s time to move past them just like any other bad breakup. You just have to leave them and their people that are too far gone behind. I have to do it all the time in technology when people won’t adapt and change. The internet and reddit was just as angry about my warning about the GPU market and mining. Most people totally lost their minds and ignored the warning and now anyone who didn’t listen got left behind (or worse). Those people are now bankrupt or (it’s dark, but true especially in the case of crypto) are no longer with us. It did not help them to downvote me and lose their minds for telling them the reality of the situation and it won’t here either.
I’m totally used to this unfortunately. It’s really hard to give people bad news / tell them what they don’t want to hear and the internet/algorithms generally punish you for this (if not outright suppress/censor you especially in the case of reddit). I’ll always try though for the people who are truly open to new information and don’t just need their existing ideas/biases stroked. So far over the years there are enough of you out there to make the site work without me trying to appeal to crowds/cults like this and to just try to give you my honest review/perspective. That’s all I really know how to do and it has generally worked out for me so far.
If you want a dirt cheap board (about $6-$7 + shipping and yes you can actually buy it for MSRP) I recently revamped the image for the Orange Pi i96. It’s not as powerful as the Pi Zero or Pi Zero 2 but it is actually cheaper and more important available for the cheap price to actually buy.
If you do attempt to buy one of these see my Raspberry Pi shortage guide for some tips on how to potentially get this cheaper or from an authorized reseller
I see your point, but your real objection here is mostly that the Pi Zero 2 W is too expensive at current market prices. You’re right.
I’m not sure I buy the not caring argument though. The problem is that the Raspberry Pi Foundation isn’t willing to set their price based on the market value of their product. The right thing to do in a situation like this where you’re supply constrained is to raise your prices for all customers. Instead, they really want to hold to a price point. The problem is, they’re prioritizing businesses that are using their part specifically because it’s too cheap. The right thing to do (as odd as it sounds) is to let the price rise to the market rate for all customers, rather than letting a subset of customers get it for below market and making the remaining customers (who are the ones you are trying to keep the price low for, ironically) end up getting the product for significantly above market price. The Pi Foundation would also make more money for their charitable causes if they got the profit from the higher market price, rather than having it go to scalpers.
I actually completely agree with you. I’ve made the arguments that Raspberry Pi should let the market work. That means that they would raise the prices to something they can actually sustain.
I think the disconnect between me and you is intent. You seem to be arguing that I’m saying their intent is bad or evil. You’re saying they are fighting against the market to try to keep their prices low. I would argue their intent doesn’t matter. Who cares what their intent is? Their intent does literally nothing for me one way or another.
Thanks for sharing, like I said we agree, I guess we just disagree with what their intent is but they get ZERO points for their intent from me because I’m just judging them on reality of the Raspberry Pi experience!
It looks like their older models are *finally* available and in stock. I don’t think the Raspberry Pi will ever be as relevant as it was though. I think the damage has been done. I no longer use Raspberry Pi boards and most of the interest I see out there is in boards like the Orange Pi 5 which far surpass anything Raspberry Pi has ever released.
RandomneRNG
8 months ago
Good point. Zero And Zero 2 W are massively overpriced and the fact that zero 2 still has that 512MB of ram is just a joke.
It’s really surprising they didn’t at least offer a more expensive option with more memory. It would be fine if it was a choice and there were higher capacities available for more $$ but to be forced into 512MB is really a joke in 2023.
Take care!
George White
9 months ago
Will those other boards mentioned direct connect to a Prusa MK3S+ board like the pi zero 2 W or like the pi zero W?
I have only seen a Raspberry pi 1 time and it was 2 boards. 1 was in the case mounted to a 3d printer and the other was not on its case. Both were I think the pi zero W.
Having a Dell 3040 Thin Client connected to my Prusa MK3S+ running Octoprint right now is okay and works but I am looking for something without a bunch of wires coming off of the thin client.
This pi would work great for me and so would the pi 3 or 4 but with more mods and a price that is in the $200 range for the pi 4. Pi 4 would need a new case, more wires, longer setup time, probably more coding than I would want to do now.
Anyway I will probably but this Pi zero 2 someday for my Prusa MK3S+ and just plug it in the back of the board.
I’ve seen people connect the Bigtreetech gear (such as the CB1) to various 3D printers. As long as there aren’t Pi-specific hats being used it should work.
I see your point, but your real objection here is mostly that the Pi Zero 2 W is too expensive at current market prices. You’re right.
I’m not sure I buy the not caring argument though. The problem is that the Raspberry Pi Foundation isn’t willing to set their price based on the market value of their product. The right thing to do in a situation like this where you’re supply constrained is to raise your prices for all customers. Instead, they really want to hold to a price point. The problem is, they’re prioritizing businesses that are using their part specifically because it’s too cheap. The right thing to do (as odd as it sounds) is to let the price rise to the market rate for all customers, rather than letting a subset of customers get it for below market and making the remaining customers (who are the ones you are trying to keep the price low for, ironically) end up getting the product for significantly above market price. The Pi Foundation would also make more money for their charitable causes if they got the profit from the higher market price, rather than having it go to scalpers.
Hey Greg,
I actually completely agree with you. I’ve made the arguments that Raspberry Pi should let the market work. That means that they would raise the prices to something they can actually sustain.
I think the disconnect between me and you is intent. You seem to be arguing that I’m saying their intent is bad or evil. You’re saying they are fighting against the market to try to keep their prices low. I would argue their intent doesn’t matter. Who cares what their intent is? Their intent does literally nothing for me one way or another.
Thanks for sharing, like I said we agree, I guess we just disagree with what their intent is but they get ZERO points for their intent from me because I’m just judging them on reality of the Raspberry Pi experience!
It looks like their older models are *finally* available and in stock. I don’t think the Raspberry Pi will ever be as relevant as it was though. I think the damage has been done. I no longer use Raspberry Pi boards and most of the interest I see out there is in boards like the Orange Pi 5 which far surpass anything Raspberry Pi has ever released.
Good point. Zero And Zero 2 W are massively overpriced and the fact that zero 2 still has that 512MB of ram is just a joke.
Hey RandomneRNG,
It’s really surprising they didn’t at least offer a more expensive option with more memory. It would be fine if it was a choice and there were higher capacities available for more $$ but to be forced into 512MB is really a joke in 2023.
Take care!
Will those other boards mentioned direct connect to a Prusa MK3S+ board like the pi zero 2 W or like the pi zero W?
I have only seen a Raspberry pi 1 time and it was 2 boards. 1 was in the case mounted to a 3d printer and the other was not on its case. Both were I think the pi zero W.
Having a Dell 3040 Thin Client connected to my Prusa MK3S+ running Octoprint right now is okay and works but I am looking for something without a bunch of wires coming off of the thin client.
This pi would work great for me and so would the pi 3 or 4 but with more mods and a price that is in the $200 range for the pi 4. Pi 4 would need a new case, more wires, longer setup time, probably more coding than I would want to do now.
Anyway I will probably but this Pi zero 2 someday for my Prusa MK3S+ and just plug it in the back of the board.
Hey George,
I’ve seen people connect the Bigtreetech gear (such as the CB1) to various 3D printers. As long as there aren’t Pi-specific hats being used it should work.
Hopefully that helps!