While I regret purchasing a Raspberry Pi 2 for use as a media centre (more on that another time), it's still more than serviceable if you want to use OpenELEC, OSMC or other home theatre distro. That is until you run up against videos encoded in H.265 / HEVC, which even the Pi 3 can struggle with.

With the announcement and surprise availability of the Raspberry Pi 3, we've updated this story to include and compare the newest of Raspberry Pi's single-board computers, along with updated pricing and availability on comparable models.

Microsoft wants Windows 10 to take over computers big and small so it has released Windows 10 IoT Core, a new edition of the OS catering to developers for embedded devices. These days, everything from fridges to cars have computers on-board, a scenario known as the Internet of Things (IoT), and Microsoft wants a big chunk of that pie. Here's how the "light" version differs.

Back in February, Microsoft promised there would be a free version of Windows 10 for Raspberry Pi 2 owners. Now you can download the preview versions of the Windows 10 IoT Core release for the Raspberry Pi 2 or Intel's Minnowboard Max.

The Raspberry Pi 2 was announced last week to mostly positive reactions from enthusiasts, despite no warning of its impending release. The upgraded board computer boasts a quad-core 900MHz ARMv7 SoC and 1GB of RAM over its predecessor, the Raspberry Pi B+, while retaining the same dimensions and a good deal of backwards-compatibility. The Pi 2 arrived at the perfect time for me -- I wanted to build a media centre with some flexibility, and the board offered the perfect compromise between tweaking and ease-of-use.