Raspberry Pi2 Model B Desktop (Quad Core CPU 900 MHz, 1 GB RAM, Linux)

I've had a collection of RaspberyPi's for several years. I've used 'em for simple music players (running Raspbian Linux), simple low-power dedicated use servers (4watts is darn cheap to operate annually), even gave one to my ten-year-old to play with.I'm a big fan. Cheap computing! (and getting cheaper, they reportedly have a $4.99 stick-of-chewing-gum sized one out).But the new Raspberry Pi 2 Model B is a whole new animal!Now, with a gigabyte of ram, and a faster processor, I've stepped it up to being a primary Home Theater box!To get there, I added a nice aluminum Flirc case, and a USB remote interface, along with a Class 10 memory card. And to make it run efficiently I went with an OSMC Kodi home theater image.Yes, used this way it is a 'Linux' operating system, it's not your standard Windows, but A) It's free! and B) It's just about a turn-key prospect.OSMC Kodi comes as a simple image, that you stick on a card, and pretty much boot it up and you're off to the races for a home theater box, that can play local media. The nice thing about running a hard-ware targeted option like OSMC (or OpenELEC) is that the image knows how to use and configure itself for the hardware, which gets you up and running without a lot of monkeying around.I've been running it via HDMI into my tv, and using it to play content on my Synology NAS box. So far it's played every format I've thrown at it (avi, mp4, mkv, in mpeg2, divx, Xvid & h264), with SD and HD resolutions (up to 1080p). I couldn't see any real bogging down during playback.UPDATE 1/5/2016: OK, I have found one specific area that the RPi2-B does bog down as a KODI media center, for video playback: Highly-compressed hi-rez h264-encoded files. I've seen it several times in the last week from both mkv & mp4 files. Yardstick: Any content in the 60min range, that's less than 200M is a candidate for bogged down frame-rates. It'll play, it's just fairly annoying. I When I've checked these they're in the 720 or higher res level; In a pinch I could certainly unpack and re-encode them with a less extreme compression level, so far I've simply shifted to a less compressed file, eg a file that's 220+ (if like myself you're not a stickler for high-res).Note: mpeg2 hardware decoding is a sub five dollar license addon from the raspberrypi site.No I'm not going to try to run a 4K interface on an RPI - frankly I don't even have a TV in that range, let alone consider streaming that kind of bandwidth off the net. :P But for 720 & 1080 or less resolutions, I'm happy as a clam with the results & cost.If you've got a collection of phone videos, or other local content, this may just be all you need..For streaming content, out of the box, you can easily add a Youtube plugin. Unfortunately, the biggest hurdles, when compared to my Roku stick or WDTVLive box, is that you aren't going to be able to find native Linux plugins for Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc, for aany Linux-based box. But, there is a common work around for that option as well: A component calle Playon, will let your linux home theater leverage a Windows pc's ability to run a native component for those services. Not free, but also not very expensive either (haven't gone that route myself; I own a Roku et al).I also own a WDTVLive box, which until now has substantially occupied this 'play local media' niche. Yes it plays just about every format known to man, and it has functional Netflix, and several other commercial components. But the fact is, the WDTVLive is fairly flakey as well. It's well known that using some of the service plugins can require a manual reboot after use. And it's media management and scanning functions are a pain (takes several minutes on startup to complete a fresh scan, before the Interface is ready to use).So all things considered, combining an RPI running OSMC\Kodi, with a Roku or other streaming box (for commercial services) is rapidly moving me into final 'cord-cutting' territory.

Pros:Almost too many to mention...where to start?It runs Minecraft Pi Edition perfectly. I don't know how to make a pickaxe though.Super Cheap and cute.Four 900mhz cores and 1 GB ram! Leaves older Pi in the dust.With 4 USB ports, you're much less likely to require a separate powered USB hub. Make sure your power source is greater than 2A, and enable 1.2A USB current output on the pi with max_usb_current=1 in /boot/config.txt to be able to power USB hard drives and other more demanding devices. Bear in mind this is 1.2A max for all the USB ports not per port. If you need to run several demanding devices at once, go with a powered hub.It can run WIndows 10. (oops that should be in the con section!)Cons:Photosensitive! Yes, really! If your plans for a Raspberry Pi 2 include lazers or Xenon flash bulbs, consider using an opaque case. I suppose future revisions will have this fixed, but it would have been nice if they had already fixed it by the time I got one. Not that I plan on taking photos of my running Pi, but why shouldn't I be able to?For some reason the Pi isn't capable of of using monitor energy saving features, at least with the default Raspbian image. I have a Beaglebone Black that connects to a LCD monitor via a HDMI to DVI cable and it suspends the monitor after a while by default, even in the console, so I'm not sure where the problem lies. The best it can do is blanking the screen, which leaves a back light on all the time. It's sort of hillbilly if you ask me. It's 2015 and monitors should be able to be suspended on a timer, even with a Pi. Global Warming!!! Then again if you use it for a headless system then it's a moot point.Still not Altoids tin compliant....Not on Black PCB....Green PCB is so 1984. I bet if they made a black one for $5 more everyone would buy it instead.

Fantastic little device cheap in price and works great, it took me less than 30 min to get set up and going. you can easily spend a small fortune on this device customizing it or you could spend very little it's completely up to you. Myself I chose the latter of the two I used stuff that I had laying around the house, keyboard and mouse realistically I didn't even use the mouse just the keyboard I found a old USB wired keyboard in the garage and I used that for the initial set up after that I had no use for it. Now if you are like me you might have charging cords all over the house from your android devices, I just grabbed one of those and used the USB port on the TV to power My Raspberry PI 2. I formatted a old micro SD card I had lying around, loaded a OS on it from the PI website and I was off to the races. Here is the cool part for the HDMI connection I enabled CEC on my TV and was able to control everything with one remote, that would had been great except my Visio Remote is not the greatest anyone with a Vizio TV will know what I'm talking about. lucky me I like to save old computer junk and when I was rummaging through my computer stuff I found a old Windows Media center remote that had a USB IR hook up, Jack pot!!! I plugged that baby in and to my surprise it worked great. All in all it was a very pleasant experience it took me a lot less time than I thought it would to set up I basically spent the cost of the unit because i used stuff i already had around the house, thanks for reading cheers!!!