The Spectrum +2, released in 1987, was the first of Amstrad's three products under the Sinclair label and was the first Sinclair machine to be built outside Britain (being manufactured in Taiwan).

It was relatively uninnovative, being a Spectrum 128 with a proper typewriter keyboard, plus a built-in tape recorder and twin joystick ports - in other words, just like Amstrad's own CPC464 machine.

It was released in two versions - the +2 in battleship grey and the +2A in dark grey with a slightly different ROM. Unlike Sinclair, Amstrad did not attempt to market the Spectrum as anything other than a games machine and sold it in bundled packages such as the "James Bond 007 Action Pack" (with light gun).

Amstrad's greater emphasis on marketing and quality control made the +2 far more reliable than Sinclair's Spectrums and, after the original 48K, the +2 became the best-selling version.