If you can't get to a Windows machine or Mac, low-level formatting on a digital camera will clean up the card read for NOOBS. After that, I've always had success with:

unzip NOOBS-ver.zip -d mountpoint_of_SD_card

I think the SD card type sensitivity has gone away with more recent firmwares on the Raspberry Pi, but they are still very critical of poor power supplies. The 2 can be especially picky, since it can put out larger currents over USB than the earlier models.

I do like the Model B Version 2. I'll have to see if it's faster than the two older (> 5 years) computers I have lying about for dedicated jobs.

Incidentally, Lawrence now has a stock of the Raspberry Pi 2 now at Creatron.

cheers,
 Stewart