- cross-posted to:
- lobsters
- cross-posted to:
- lobsters
Raspberry Pi 500+ boasts a high-quality mechanical keyboard with removable keycaps and individually addressable RGB LEDs, an internal M.2 socket pre-fitted with a 256GB Raspberry Pi SSD, and 16GB of RAM.
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'member when Raspberry Pis were like twenty-five bucks?
I just said the same thing, got a couple 1ghz quad core I use with an old version of RetroPi, think they were $35 when I got em
This is a cool piece of tech but I can’t really think of real world use cases besides looking cool and having that weird but cool computer-in-keyboard retro vibe. I had the same idea with the 400.
Maybe the best use would be some sort of super portable thin client, but looks very capable to be just that. Having a battery would have made sense too, for portability. Any out of the box way of connecting it to a smartphone screen would be great too, even if it’s just tty.
Maybe I’m just being obtuse and just want a laptop, but the whole thing seems impractical to me.
If I had one I’d probably dedicate it to emulation.
But I have a MiSTer for that, so…
Ultimate?? And this certainly shows what they were up to when they left the M2 slot out of the original Pi 500. I’m sure it helps.
I have a 400 and it’s a cool machine but its web browser is unusably slow. This new thing will be better but is will still be slow compared to a basic x86 board.
Interesting about the mechanical keyboard and I wonder if maintenance is possible. With the 400, there is no way to replace the keyboard when it wears out.
The lack of a pointing device is a big error imho. You end up needing a mouse or other thing needing a surface to put it on. Not so good for using on your lap.
Even with my 400, I generally used an external USB trackpad keyboard. So I think this 500+ ($200) has to be compared with a Pi 5 ($132 with 16GB and already overpriced) plus a keyboard and M2 drive. A Pi 5 with 2GB is $50 and a 16gb ddr4 sodimm (which won’t fit in a pi) is about $40, so there is a gap somewhere.
shows what they were up to when they left the M2 slot out of the original Pi 500. I’m sure it helps.
Likely the issue was that the board layout as is. Did not allow for the current 400 case to take the M2 slot in a way that users could have easy access.
While you and Def I. May not worry about having to unclip the case. For a company selling mainly as an educational product. (Dispite that no longer being their main market).
The cost and time for case mods of that level. Likely made this option much more logical.
Many guess something like this was the next stage. Keyboard is a real nice suprise though.
Likely the issue was that the board layout as is. Did not allow for the current 400 case to take the M2 slot in a way that users could have easy access.
The 500 case (no idea about 400) could accomodate the M2 drive and some people installed their own.
It’s also weird that the 500+ comes with a 256GB drive with no 512GB offered (maybe they will offer that later).
Still, for $200 you can get a decent X86 laptop, so this $200 rpi is niche.
…why is there no normal HDMI port?
I don’t see a good view of the row of ports, but on my 400 there’s quite a bit there between the HAT, USBs, micro SD, etc. My guess is that full HDMI would cause some space issues
there are tons of images of the thing on their store page, including of the pcb, which is entirely custom.
