Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W Review: The early bird

It is fair to say that Pimoroni gave everyone a shock when it announced the $17 (£16.80) Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W (PPP2W). Why? Because Pimoroni beat Raspberry Pi to the punch with a wireless version of the new Raspberry Pi Pico 2. Also, the wireless module featured on the Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W is a Raspberry Pi branded module, RM2, which we guess will become part of the announced, but as yet unreleased Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W.

Is the PPP2W any good, and most of all, is it worth $17? Let’s find out!

Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W Technical Specifications

You will have spotted that the RP2350 SoC is much larger than the Raspberry Pi Pico 2’s. This is because it has the RP2350B, a larger (10mm QFN-80 versus the Pico 2’s 7mm QFN-60) packaged chip with more GPIO pins (48 versus 30). If you’d like to know more about the difference between the RP2350A and the RP2350B, I’ve got a full reference article that you can read.

The RP2350B in the Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W packs the usual dual CPU Arm Cortex M33 and a RISC-V CPU) as the Pico 2, but Pimoroni has included all of the extras when it comes to RAM and storage. The base SRAM of the RP230 remains 520KB, but PSRAM is now bumped to 8MB! PSRAM isn’t as fast as SRAM, but for most use cases, it is plenty fast! An external QSPI flash chip provides 16MB of storage, accessible by the user in their projects. The Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W is fully-loaded and ready for the big projects!

Design of Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W

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Packing plenty of features while maintaining compatibility with the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 (and older model Picos) GPIO is quite a feat, and Pimoroni has managed it. If you rely on the same GPIO pinout, then you are good, the extra connections for QW/ST (Qwiic / Stemma QT) and SWD debug are broken out to ports on the top of the unit, just like they are on the Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 and the older Pimoroni Pico Lipo. Also on the top of the board are the ubiquitous Boot button (used to put the board into bootloader mode) and a reset button. It may seem silly, but a reset button is most welcome when constantly flashing new firmware for testing.
Power and data connectivity comes via USB type-C, and we are most grateful for this. Micro USB is fine, but the connector only works one way, and it can feel a little fragile. Using USB type-C also follows the Pico Lip and Pico Plus 2W design language.

Flipping the board over and we see the Raspberry Pi RM2 wireless and Bluetooth breakout board. This is an official Raspberry Pi wireless module based around the CYW43439 which supports IEEE 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth. We expect this module to be part of the official Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W, when it appears later this year. The inclusion of the RM2 means that the SP/CE connector (pronounced spice) found on the Pico Plus 2, is not present on the PPP2W. This is a shame as the SP/CE connector made incredibly short work of connecting the Pimoroni Clipper 4G LTE breakout, but it’s not a deal breaker as there are plenty of GPIO pins to connect to.

The all black PCB features a white silkscreen print that identifies the Pico compatible pinout, and this is so useful. This pinout print has been on the Pico Lipo and the Pico Plus 2 and it makes total sense for those of us working in the field. We need to know the correct GPIO pin reference without looking it up. Sure it doesn’t list SPI, UART or analog pins, but there is only so much space for the silkscreen.

Soldering GPIO pins to the Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W is a joy. I used my iFixit Fixhub portable soldering station, but you can use any of the best soldering irons to solder the GPIO pins. The castellated edges means that the PPP2W could be surface mount soldered to a carrier board, but take into account that the RM2 wireless board is underneath, so cut a section (or best yet, design a cut-out) out of the PCB.

Using Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W

Let’s get the elephant in the room addressed. This review comes weeks after the release of the Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W. Why? Simply because the original MicroPython firmware had a few bugs that needed to be ironed out. We’re happy to say that things are stable enough for a review and so here we go.

To get the most from the PPP2W we will need to use Pimoroni’s custom firmware, and if you are familiar with making Wi-Fi connections on the Raspberry Pi Pico W, then you are in familiar territory. It works in just the same manner, and the MicroPython to use the GPIO is exactly the same. The firmware also provides us with full access to the 16MB of QSPI storage, plenty of room for storing files and shuffling things in and out of PSRAM.

Connecting to Wi-Fi was easy, but take into account that there is no external antenna, so you’ll need to be relatively near to an access point. Once connected, everything runs smoothly, and we were able to pull data from JSON feeds (yes I tested my ISS Astronaut project) and send data. I even managed to connect the PPP2W to BlueSky and use it to send and receive messages using the same script that I wrote for a MicroPython BlueSky how to. I just swapped the boards, copied the code over and everything worked!

Who is Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W for?

This is a board for those of us that want the best Raspberry Pi Pico 2 experience. Sure it has the same core CPUs and SRAM. But all of that PSRAM and flash storage makes the Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W an interesting development platform for advanced projects. What do I mean by advanced? The original Raspberry Pi Pico was soon pressed into service as a retro gaming device. It could emulate old computers like the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, and even be used to replace the custom chips of vintage computers, like the Commodore 64’s SID (Sound Interface Device) chip.

So what could the RP2350B in the Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W be used for? The same, but also much, much more! We can directly play Doom on the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 (yes, we could on the RP2040, but it was much slower) and there will be enterprising creators who harness the power of the RP2350 to emulate more powerful machines.

Bottom Line?

It’s a higher price than the stock Raspberry Pi Pico 2 but you get much more while retaining the same form factor as the Raspberry Pi Pico 2. If you demand the best possible RP2350 platform for your build, then the Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W is that!