The decode method for converting from bytes to str is missing in non-Express builds. This makes it awkward to take data from I/O and print it. It seems like this should exist, obviously the codec is ignored on a microcontroller but being able to switch immutable data types from one that iterates as ints to one that is printable and iterates as one character strings is desirable. Depending on the micropython gc internals both could share the same data buffer behind the scenes (I haven't looked inside that box yet...).

Workaround, a silly looking: ''.join(chr(b) for b in bytes_data)

Noticed when using the Feather M0 Basic 2.1.0 circuitpython release. I had to work around this when moving code over from where I developed it on an Express.