I’ve been looking for something like this exact form factor but with a giant battery and usb-c displayport out and PD out to use with a pair of video display glasses like the XReal Pros.
Could have real space and weight saving potential, better privacy on plane rides, and a nice large virtual display with better ergonomics to go along with it.
Would love to at least have DP Alt Mode on the USB-C power input someday... maybe in the next generation. They're always wanting for board space; dropping one set of USB-A ports would give a bit!
If Radxa would slow down their rollout of another new hardware board with vastly different target markets every month or so, they could wind up with a few really well-supported boards.
But as it is, you have to love tinkering with Linux or reading things across forums, blog posts, GitHub issues, and Discord to get a given Radxa board going nicely. It can be done, but it still takes too much effort for many.
idk but sounds like they might be run by designers and also they might be outsourcing PCBA. Just doing one batch simplifies operations by a lot. Not that I think it's commendable to do so...
I don't think this is a competitive product. You can get a more powerful PC on Amazon for less. It's neat, but more of a fun gadget than a good cost-benefit offering. The Raspberry Pi foundation isn't going in a good direction IMHO.
> The Raspberry Pi foundation isn't going in a good direction IMHO.
I disagree. This is exactly the type of product they should be building: It’s fun. It’s self contained. It lights up and looks intriguing to young people. It has a great community. It has plenty of documentation. You can expand from it and tap into a big universe of Raspberry Pi projects. You can store it away when you or your kids are done with it. You can connect it to your TV easily.
This is perfect for everything the Raspberry Pi Foundation set out to do: Be an educational ecosystem that was easy to access.
So many people are confused by Raspberry Pi because they think it’s supposed to be the most powerful or most bang for your buck general compute machine out there. That’s not their goal or their market.
As you said, if someone wants a fast general purpose PC they shouldn’t even be looking at this. That’s not what it’s for.
Education is their mission, but people say this in defense of every product they release these days. The primary enabler of the mission is not the educational sales themselves, it's the sales for embedded or general tinkering use.
I think what people really overlook is how much brand recognition and mindshare "Raspberry Pi" has from the earlier products. That carries a very long way, but if none of the new products are supposed to scratch that same market itch then there will eventually be a problem. It reminds me a bit of folks who felt Mozilla should only care about the overall mission for the web instead of making sure Firefox grows to continue supporting that mission. They couldn't rest on their laurels forever to only do the mission either, and are in a tough spot for it.
> The primary enabler of the mission is not the educational sales themselves, it's the sales for embedded or general tinkering use.
They’re doing perfectly fine in this area.
This product is an additional option that brings their product line to even more people. I don’t understand why it makes some people upset when they offer more options. They haven’t taken away anything from their core product line. This is a variant of it. It’s not for you, but it is prefer for many
As mentioned, the same is said of the main product line these days. There they've gone a long way up in TCO without an equivalent feature/performance differentiation over the competition to show for it. They can't all be the non-competitive ones the average non-k12 student is supposed to avoid looking at each time the conversation is brought up. Either the main line needs to become hyper competitive again or the accessory lines can take the role, just not "neither".
I think the Pico 2 and maybe compute module variant (depending on sub-niche use case) are still competitively interesting in their own right, but feel the rest are largely help up by the brand name at this point and I wonder how much of the revenue those add up to (Pico in particular, since its market is in the cup of coffee range).
Of course the brand value will hold things for many years to come (how many have 3 pis in a drawer just because the new one comes out and folks still buy it on name before thinking if it's worth it?) so they've got plenty of time to strike gold again for now.
The Pico/RP2040/RP2350 ecosystem is more competitive because it's a distance-to-the-metal thing.
At this point, most "mainstream" Pis are being used with off-the-shelf software or at least an off-the-shelf OS with custom userland code, and the technical details of the Pi are black-boxed away. So any competitor just needs to get you to the same basic "here's a Linux distro with the common packages" to get to a basic product parity, and then can differentiate with more/better/cheaper. This is especially easy when you can target a vertical specifically, like the "router boards" that come with an OpenWRT package.
The Picos are being programmed at a low level. If you want to swap in a STM32 or CH32V, you're a lot more concerned about "are the reference docs available and accurate", "will there be a reference to my specific weirdnesses on Stack Overflow", and "do the dev tools actually work." From that perspective, the RP products are industry leading, at least to a "Nobody ever got fired for buying ~IBM~ RP2040" level.
STM32 would be the IBM of the embedded world, but that doesn't invalidate your point; RP MCU's are documented well enough and stable enough for professional work.
> There they've gone a long way up in TCO without an equivalent feature/performance differentiation over the competition to show for it.
Yet they’re still selling out quickly and it can still be hard to find the model you want without shopping different distributors.
I think people like you who comparison shop based on the specs in a table don’t realize you’re simply not the target market. The target market will take the better ecosystem, support, and documentation even if it comes with less performance.
The people who want the fastest SBC and don’t mind spending a day or week chasing the right kernel fork to solve their problem are not the target audience.
I think people tried out the Raspberry Pi 4 because it was just powerful enough to run desktop and there weren't cheap desktop options. Now there are plenty of cheap desktop options and while Pi 5 is more usable, it can't compare.
But the Pi was popular before that for fun things. It still compares well for fun things unless trying to do AI. For me, the Pi 5 isn't that interesting because I don't need the performance, and Pi 4 or Pi 3 will get the job done without the power hassle.
it's a lot easier to buy additional gadgets when you can assume or when they explicitly declare that they're usable with the pi 5, and the time saved from "oh just install these commands" documentation is easily much greater than the cost for the same price. And the performance isn't the point either, the tinkerability and time spent is.
And I think they'll continue to sell very well from brand name alone. That won't last forever, but it's not going to disappear next year either. They've had pretty flat unit volume the last 3 years, it's not about to nosedive out of the blue the same as volume is not about to continue growing the same as it used to (even though they launch more and more product lines).
The differentiator for the Pi line was support for the capability at the price point, but the competition for the mainline Pis is no longer "random ARM boards with no driver updates", so no longer is that support actually the differentiator for the Pi either. With the lowest cost Pi 5 model, $50 gets you a bare 2GB RAM board with no power or storage and you're still left with the bespoke ARM OS images and binaries to deal with. For the price of higher end models you can just get a complete standard x86 PC which happens to run better. That latter bit about the spec sheet is a bonus, not the main change. I.e. the target market shifted from "hot damn, I can run Linux at such a low price and wattage point while not worrying about support???" to "I want to spend my weekend tinkering with a Pi". The Pico 2 remains decent for the general market though. At $5 it's a well supported MCU with decent kit and a USB interface if you need to have that on a computer.
It'll also be interesting to see how much education even remains the mission now that they've IPOd. E.g., the mission statement on the investor relations page is:
> Raspberry Pi’s mission is to put high-performance, low-cost, general-purpose computing platforms in the hands of enthusiasts and engineers all over the world.
At the end of the day though, we could talk for days about how it must be one way or the other, but the only way to see what will actually happen is to wait 5-10 years. That reminds me, there is a regular HN "predictions for the next decade" kind of thread every turn of the decade and we're closer the next one rather than the last one already!
Exactly. The people who scoff at this unit and demand a faster SoC and other features for their project are completely missing the point. This isn’t for those people. This is for making computing exciting and interesting at an affordable price point that can be plugged into a TV or cheap monitor and comes with a big ecosystem of support.
That was the prime directive of the Raspberry Pi foundation all along: they wanted to recreate the BBC Micro experience. Back in its heyday, it was both purchasable and widely installed in schools, and the BBC ran educational television shows about computing. This is also why Raapbian ships with programming tools set up out of the box.
It was kind of an accident that the Raspberry Pi also became the de facto standard single-board computer for hobby electronics projects.
Agree. I'd never heard of this before. It's lovely. I'm guessing they are aiming for what 8-bit micros where during the 80s. Which is oddly what recall that the original pi was supposed to be. I have no reason what's so ever to buy this, but I really want to.
> You can get a more powerful PC on Amazon for less.
I'm not sure that really matters. It's well known that most people are not "homo economicus" rational / optimizing agents seeking to min/max every purchase decision. A lot of other factors go into purchases, and name recognition, brand loyalty, and general goodwill count for a lot with most people. Of course there are eventual limits to that, and any brand can be displaced if they are too cavalier with regards to meeting consumer needs. But in this case, I strongly suspect the people that want a Raspberry Pi 500+ are the people that want a Raspberry Pi 500+ and that's the end of it. They're not going to buy the competing product because it's $20 cheaper.
Also, something Jeff has pointed out in his videos on many occasions, as I recall: don't underestimate the importance of the associated software (eg, a working, supported OS with usable drivers that work on the device) as well as the community (support forums, etc) and the overall ecosystem (supported / trusted add-ons, mods, etc). To a lot of people it's that stuff that keeps them coming back to the RPi brand.
In a keyboard format? Something running a simple OS that doesn't link you or your family identity and data straight into Google?
Something a less technical parent can wire up in the family room from a trusted brand without having to do a ton of research for not only reputable brands but also vendors on amazon?
Educational mission aside this is a good alternative to a chromebook.
I'm confused as to why they decided to build this when they already previously built the Raspberry Pi 400 keyboard all-in-one for under $100. As a casual observer, I don't know who they've built this $200 machine for. A cheap all-in-one for education totally makes sense, but this is a bit too much. Maybe someone more in the know can help us understand what direction the company's going?
How’s it too much? I’m baffled. If I had a kid between 10-18ish that needed/wanted a non-gaming computer, I would find this to be nearly perfect. $200 is not a ton of money for a computer, and it seems to be just powerful enough I wouldn’t worry about general tasks being frustrating.
I was saying that this part of your previous comment:
> just powerful enough I wouldn’t worry about general tasks being frustrating.
is not true. From experience with pi 5. It was not powerful enough to avoid frustrating an 8-yo. Too many educational resources use the web, and modern browsers are what they are. Maybe this 500+, with an nvme drive, is better, but I wouldn't bet on it.
> how’s it stopping people who prefer the n100 route?
It isn't stopping anyone from anything. This was my advice in case you somehow acquire "a kid between 10-18ish". Don't use overpriced ultra-niche devices unless you have a very clear scenario.
The Pi x00s are targeted at a certain nostalgic parent demographic, but do not, in my limited experience, impress, excite, or interest actual kids. The magic in c64 or apple ii was not in its form factor.
> The negativity about a $200 Linux computer just baffles me. Nobody’s forcing it on you.
You were saying that it's not overpriced for what it is. I said that you can get more performant devices cheaper. That's not negativity, that's conversation. You can say you still like this device for other reasons. Or say "hmm, maybe". Or not say anything at all.
Also, I'm very positive on sub-200 Linux computers, and own many. Including multiple Pis (main series boards and 400 are gathering dust, Zeros are cool as an airplay receiver and laser cutter operator), and several n100 boxes.
I agree it seems strange market placement. I guess the Pi 500 is for kids and the double the price 500+ is for adult hardware hackers who often like mechanical keyboards. However if they're hardware hackers, an all in one keyboard pc makes hacking the hardware redundant?
They'll sell a lot more 500s, but are the profit margins on the 500+ really that great?
>I'm confused as to why they decided to build this when they already previously built the Raspberry Pi 400 keyboard all-in-one for under $100.
As you would have been told in the second paragraph had you actually read the article, this is not a replacement for the existing Pi 500, which costs about that much MSRP.
You're right, I forgot about the Pi 500 which was already that price. Still, it doesn't answer my question about who this is for.
Is their strategy to branch out to more premium prices? Did they see enough uptake of the Pi 500 that they figured there's enough of a niche to want to pay $200 for a bit more?
It's just interesting to me that they started out making cheap little educational devices that were great for the price and now they're making $200 devices. I understand there's a profit-making side to Raspberry Pi now that they're not strictly just a charity, so this must be some long-term bet.
My first thought was that what you want for education is a best bang for your buck computer so that a student has an affordable option. In that sense the most competitive option would be the best choice.
But I’m probably missing some extra feature or idea that makes the pi a better option even if comparatively more expensive? What’s is it?
The best option for education is going to be the system with the best educational resources. Performance per dollar isn’t really relevant, because educational uses don’t need good performance. Most of what you do in an educational environment are simple use cases.
Back in the 90s, schools were filled with either IBM or Apple computers. Not because they were cheap, but because they were predictably compatible with the types of software that educators wanted to use in those environments. They could’ve bought cheaper clones.
The Raspberry Pi foundation is not a computer company, they are an educational charity that just happens to also make a computer. Their primary work is in pedagogy resources, research, and support. A Raspberry Pi has more educational resources, because literally that is the primary work of the company that makes it. They have a full CS curriculum for ages 5-19. The entire reason it exists is as an educational tool. Their mission statement doesn't even mention making a computer -- they simply do that to support their primary education work.
It wasn't until later that hobbyists and commercial interests also started using Raspberry Pis for things outside of the classroom. But that's where they came from.
Not really true any more. You've linked to the foundation but the computers are made by Raspberry PI Holdings which is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
The foundation still owns part of the quoted company and retains its educational purpose but it doesn't make the computers now.
> retains its educational purpose but it doesn't make the computers now.
It never did. The structure hasn't changed meaningfully recently, apart from the massive windfall of floating the commercial arm.
The foundation's purpose hasn't changed, its just now a fucktonne richer.
But the thing I'm not quite sure about is why that matters, virtually every other player, apart from adafruit is a corporation all about shareholder value.
> Pretty much any computer that runs windows or a Linux distro will have access to equivalent tooling, wouldn’t it?
Well it wouldn't have GPIO and really well written docs on how to use those GPIO.
You have to remember how hard (and expensive) embedded linux was until raspberry pi came along. Sure you had gumstix and BeagleBoard, but they were >$300 and needed a fuckton of work to get going. Even more so before you could deploy anything workable to it.
Lattepanda is a thing now & no one is forcing you to buy an Rpi.
How many $200 all in one machines have a fully hackable RGB keyboard with public firmware and docs to make your own firmware, plus a SBC to do basic computer thing?
if thats expensive, then perhaps just buy the 500, it half the price.
What is there to tinker? Using the connector on the back? As you pointed out, you get that on the cheaper option.
The mini PCs sold everywhere these days use standard Linux with over the counter components by Intel and AMD that are documented to death. They have the memory, faster CPU, fast storage, multiple HDMI outs, power switches etc. They run Windows if that's your thing. You can actually use them as your main computer if you are a teenager or light user.
This is far from the British computers that theoretically inspired the foundation. Even the cheaper 500 isn't such a great value for real world computer education. I bet more adult hobbyists like me use them than actual children.
I would argue that 400 is not a good value either, for that price you have to deal with occasionally broken file-system because caused by sd card and terrible keyboard. Not a good experience for beginner or a learning child.
People like to criticise x64 but getting a thin client from ebay and ESP32 GPIO board is probably the best bang for your buck.
No one buys raspberry pi to save money anymore, you buy it because you want to use Arm architecture and ability to use Android builds like LineageOS.
Those days have long passed and most of the money is made on the b2b/industrial side. But these days raspberry pis only have a mode in software compatibility and LTS and those are slowly dwindling away. I'd be hard pressed to buy a raspberry pi of any kind these days when RK35XX Devices are available and beat pis at almost every task.
I really hope the pi foundation gets their head out of their behinds and stars competing again.
Yes that why you should buy the slower, worse version for more money. It's not about that. Or competing. It's about buying a brandname original Raspberry Pi^tm^(r) and not the cheaper faster alternative.
Some of the "no-name outfits", like Geekom and Beelink, have built good reputations.
It's possible to score a name-brand, refurbished "thin client" PC for around Raspberry Pi 3 dollars. I scored an HP one for $25, and it fits nicely in the "small fanless PC" niche, runs Linux, and is faster than the corresponding Pi would be.
You get an Intel CPU glued to some generic motherboard. If you don’t need GPIO a random N100 PC can do everything a Raspberry can (and you can get an adapter for that).
is this... just racism, actually? there are a million cool electronics on Amazon from random Shenzhen sellers and while I prefer that my electronics come from countries with better human rights records it's not flea market dreck, it's very much the best stuff you can buy, that you can't get anywhere else.
the attitude that stuff from brands you don't recognize from Shenzhen are "flea market dreck" is exactly why Chinese brands like DVI are winning
I don’t see what racism has to do with it. Most of my electronic components originate from China one way or another, but there’s a real difference in quality between established brands and the random stuff popping up on amazon in the last few years. To review a few experiences I’ve had:
- Wires I bought for breadboard prototyping turned out to not be made of copper after I noticed them sticking to a magnet on my workbench.
- A power supply module I purchased appeared to be using counterfeit chips. The switching frequency didn’t match the TI data sheet for the markings on the chip.
- I wasted several days trying to get an sdcard module to work. I gave up and ordered from adafruit instead and those worked on the first try.
Not to mention the well documented problems with counterfeit sdcards, etc.
With mini PCs, there are a million different ways bargain brands can cut corners that won’t show up immediately.
>is this... just racism, actually?
Perhaps but mostly a result of decades of bad consumer experiences. From Malware preinstalled to terrible software support and downright dangerous electronics, chinese hardware from alibaba amazon and ebay is rightfully regarded as questionable, potentially even dangerous until proven otherwise. And without a track record in software updates, any company selling any internet or god forbid cloud connected device is plain irresposible to use until proven otherwise.
Amazon doesn't show you the race of the product owner (and typing this I realise how fucking stupid that sounds)
However Amazon also doesn't care about what shit it sells you, so its perfectly possible to be scammed by some shady org out for a quick buck.
Even if you spend the time to research the right brand, Amazon doesn't actually guarantee that it'll sell you that brand, through a lot of weird bate and switch and "other sellers also offer", and just plain deceit, its not that hard to end up with expensive shite.
I have a bunch of n100s for both home and work. currently we have a 1/4 failure rate (combo and beelink and trigkey green, and others)
I still have all my Pis working, apart from the ones that got wet. (however, thats SD card dependent. Thats at least cheaper.)
> the attitude that stuff from brands you don't recognize from Shenzhen
Its not Shenzhen thats the problem, its Amazon/marketplace trying to make a fast one palming off shite as gold.
You can get a more powerful PC on Amazon for less.
I think you might be missing the point. If you’re looking for the cheapest, most cost-effective computer, and you’re willing to shop for it on Amazon, then I know you’re missing the point.
Old Cherry keywitches in Wyse Terminals and computers were the best keyboards ever. They had a great feel with barely there faint click. Totally nothing like the CLONK CLICK that people think made those early IBM keyboards popular. I always hated them. If you're copying a keyboard an old Wyse keyboard from say a WY50 terminal or Wyse386 PC clone and copy that.
Visited there the first time ever a few months ago, you're lucky to have both that and the new Micro Center in close proximity. If only every city could be so lucky.
Yup, and you will get mainline linux kernel support and UEFI too.
No mincing around with specially blessed SD card images and non-standard boot procedures.
I was actually curious to see if this actually exists, originally I thought a pi 1 with a cheap keyboard and ssd, but of course the pi 1 doesn't support ssd's anyway. In the end I found an old thinkpad on ebay that technically meets the spec (E-50, i3, 8gb ram and 128gb ssd), though preowned is kind of cheating. New I think you might be right, even without the keyboard.
To be clear I think the price of the pi 500+ is pretty much fine for what it is, I was just curious.
I’ve been looking for something like this exact form factor but with a giant battery and usb-c displayport out and PD out to use with a pair of video display glasses like the XReal Pros. Could have real space and weight saving potential, better privacy on plane rides, and a nice large virtual display with better ergonomics to go along with it.
Would love to at least have DP Alt Mode on the USB-C power input someday... maybe in the next generation. They're always wanting for board space; dropping one set of USB-A ports would give a bit!
Radxa has rpi clones with better specs that already do that
If Radxa would slow down their rollout of another new hardware board with vastly different target markets every month or so, they could wind up with a few really well-supported boards.
But as it is, you have to love tinkering with Linux or reading things across forums, blog posts, GitHub issues, and Discord to get a given Radxa board going nicely. It can be done, but it still takes too much effort for many.
idk but sounds like they might be run by designers and also they might be outsourcing PCBA. Just doing one batch simplifies operations by a lot. Not that I think it's commendable to do so...
Sounds like the opposite of a RPi clone.
I'm waiting for AR glasses to get higher res, but yes.
Also, if we're posting our wishlist - Preonic form factor.
https://drop.com/buy/preonic-mechanical-keyboard
I settled on a GPD Win Mini with HX370. Tiny full laptop when needed, quick wireless keyboard pairing away from more versatile setups.
That's pretty cool!
I don't think this is a competitive product. You can get a more powerful PC on Amazon for less. It's neat, but more of a fun gadget than a good cost-benefit offering. The Raspberry Pi foundation isn't going in a good direction IMHO.
> The Raspberry Pi foundation isn't going in a good direction IMHO.
I disagree. This is exactly the type of product they should be building: It’s fun. It’s self contained. It lights up and looks intriguing to young people. It has a great community. It has plenty of documentation. You can expand from it and tap into a big universe of Raspberry Pi projects. You can store it away when you or your kids are done with it. You can connect it to your TV easily.
This is perfect for everything the Raspberry Pi Foundation set out to do: Be an educational ecosystem that was easy to access.
So many people are confused by Raspberry Pi because they think it’s supposed to be the most powerful or most bang for your buck general compute machine out there. That’s not their goal or their market.
As you said, if someone wants a fast general purpose PC they shouldn’t even be looking at this. That’s not what it’s for.
Education is their mission, but people say this in defense of every product they release these days. The primary enabler of the mission is not the educational sales themselves, it's the sales for embedded or general tinkering use.
I think what people really overlook is how much brand recognition and mindshare "Raspberry Pi" has from the earlier products. That carries a very long way, but if none of the new products are supposed to scratch that same market itch then there will eventually be a problem. It reminds me a bit of folks who felt Mozilla should only care about the overall mission for the web instead of making sure Firefox grows to continue supporting that mission. They couldn't rest on their laurels forever to only do the mission either, and are in a tough spot for it.
> The primary enabler of the mission is not the educational sales themselves, it's the sales for embedded or general tinkering use.
They’re doing perfectly fine in this area.
This product is an additional option that brings their product line to even more people. I don’t understand why it makes some people upset when they offer more options. They haven’t taken away anything from their core product line. This is a variant of it. It’s not for you, but it is prefer for many
As mentioned, the same is said of the main product line these days. There they've gone a long way up in TCO without an equivalent feature/performance differentiation over the competition to show for it. They can't all be the non-competitive ones the average non-k12 student is supposed to avoid looking at each time the conversation is brought up. Either the main line needs to become hyper competitive again or the accessory lines can take the role, just not "neither".
I think the Pico 2 and maybe compute module variant (depending on sub-niche use case) are still competitively interesting in their own right, but feel the rest are largely help up by the brand name at this point and I wonder how much of the revenue those add up to (Pico in particular, since its market is in the cup of coffee range).
Of course the brand value will hold things for many years to come (how many have 3 pis in a drawer just because the new one comes out and folks still buy it on name before thinking if it's worth it?) so they've got plenty of time to strike gold again for now.
The Pico/RP2040/RP2350 ecosystem is more competitive because it's a distance-to-the-metal thing.
At this point, most "mainstream" Pis are being used with off-the-shelf software or at least an off-the-shelf OS with custom userland code, and the technical details of the Pi are black-boxed away. So any competitor just needs to get you to the same basic "here's a Linux distro with the common packages" to get to a basic product parity, and then can differentiate with more/better/cheaper. This is especially easy when you can target a vertical specifically, like the "router boards" that come with an OpenWRT package.
The Picos are being programmed at a low level. If you want to swap in a STM32 or CH32V, you're a lot more concerned about "are the reference docs available and accurate", "will there be a reference to my specific weirdnesses on Stack Overflow", and "do the dev tools actually work." From that perspective, the RP products are industry leading, at least to a "Nobody ever got fired for buying ~IBM~ RP2040" level.
STM32 would be the IBM of the embedded world, but that doesn't invalidate your point; RP MCU's are documented well enough and stable enough for professional work.
> There they've gone a long way up in TCO without an equivalent feature/performance differentiation over the competition to show for it.
Yet they’re still selling out quickly and it can still be hard to find the model you want without shopping different distributors.
I think people like you who comparison shop based on the specs in a table don’t realize you’re simply not the target market. The target market will take the better ecosystem, support, and documentation even if it comes with less performance.
The people who want the fastest SBC and don’t mind spending a day or week chasing the right kernel fork to solve their problem are not the target audience.
I think people tried out the Raspberry Pi 4 because it was just powerful enough to run desktop and there weren't cheap desktop options. Now there are plenty of cheap desktop options and while Pi 5 is more usable, it can't compare.
But the Pi was popular before that for fun things. It still compares well for fun things unless trying to do AI. For me, the Pi 5 isn't that interesting because I don't need the performance, and Pi 4 or Pi 3 will get the job done without the power hassle.
it's a lot easier to buy additional gadgets when you can assume or when they explicitly declare that they're usable with the pi 5, and the time saved from "oh just install these commands" documentation is easily much greater than the cost for the same price. And the performance isn't the point either, the tinkerability and time spent is.
And I think they'll continue to sell very well from brand name alone. That won't last forever, but it's not going to disappear next year either. They've had pretty flat unit volume the last 3 years, it's not about to nosedive out of the blue the same as volume is not about to continue growing the same as it used to (even though they launch more and more product lines).
The differentiator for the Pi line was support for the capability at the price point, but the competition for the mainline Pis is no longer "random ARM boards with no driver updates", so no longer is that support actually the differentiator for the Pi either. With the lowest cost Pi 5 model, $50 gets you a bare 2GB RAM board with no power or storage and you're still left with the bespoke ARM OS images and binaries to deal with. For the price of higher end models you can just get a complete standard x86 PC which happens to run better. That latter bit about the spec sheet is a bonus, not the main change. I.e. the target market shifted from "hot damn, I can run Linux at such a low price and wattage point while not worrying about support???" to "I want to spend my weekend tinkering with a Pi". The Pico 2 remains decent for the general market though. At $5 it's a well supported MCU with decent kit and a USB interface if you need to have that on a computer.
It'll also be interesting to see how much education even remains the mission now that they've IPOd. E.g., the mission statement on the investor relations page is:
> Raspberry Pi’s mission is to put high-performance, low-cost, general-purpose computing platforms in the hands of enthusiasts and engineers all over the world.
At the end of the day though, we could talk for days about how it must be one way or the other, but the only way to see what will actually happen is to wait 5-10 years. That reminds me, there is a regular HN "predictions for the next decade" kind of thread every turn of the decade and we're closer the next one rather than the last one already!
Some kid is going to get inspired. Hacking the shit out of the lights under the keyboard on this and have a lifelong muse due to it. I’m sure of it.
Exactly. The people who scoff at this unit and demand a faster SoC and other features for their project are completely missing the point. This isn’t for those people. This is for making computing exciting and interesting at an affordable price point that can be plugged into a TV or cheap monitor and comes with a big ecosystem of support.
That was the prime directive of the Raspberry Pi foundation all along: they wanted to recreate the BBC Micro experience. Back in its heyday, it was both purchasable and widely installed in schools, and the BBC ran educational television shows about computing. This is also why Raapbian ships with programming tools set up out of the box.
It was kind of an accident that the Raspberry Pi also became the de facto standard single-board computer for hobby electronics projects.
Agree. I'd never heard of this before. It's lovely. I'm guessing they are aiming for what 8-bit micros where during the 80s. Which is oddly what recall that the original pi was supposed to be. I have no reason what's so ever to buy this, but I really want to.
Edit: reminds me of this, https://www.officestationery.co.uk/product/fuze-keyboard-wit...
> You can get a more powerful PC on Amazon for less.
I'm not sure that really matters. It's well known that most people are not "homo economicus" rational / optimizing agents seeking to min/max every purchase decision. A lot of other factors go into purchases, and name recognition, brand loyalty, and general goodwill count for a lot with most people. Of course there are eventual limits to that, and any brand can be displaced if they are too cavalier with regards to meeting consumer needs. But in this case, I strongly suspect the people that want a Raspberry Pi 500+ are the people that want a Raspberry Pi 500+ and that's the end of it. They're not going to buy the competing product because it's $20 cheaper.
Also, something Jeff has pointed out in his videos on many occasions, as I recall: don't underestimate the importance of the associated software (eg, a working, supported OS with usable drivers that work on the device) as well as the community (support forums, etc) and the overall ecosystem (supported / trusted add-ons, mods, etc). To a lot of people it's that stuff that keeps them coming back to the RPi brand.
In a keyboard format? Something running a simple OS that doesn't link you or your family identity and data straight into Google?
Something a less technical parent can wire up in the family room from a trusted brand without having to do a ton of research for not only reputable brands but also vendors on amazon?
Educational mission aside this is a good alternative to a chromebook.
The existing non-plus version of the Raspberry Pi 500 serves that need for $100. This is about the new Raspberry Pi 500+ that costs twice as much.
I'm confused as to why they decided to build this when they already previously built the Raspberry Pi 400 keyboard all-in-one for under $100. As a casual observer, I don't know who they've built this $200 machine for. A cheap all-in-one for education totally makes sense, but this is a bit too much. Maybe someone more in the know can help us understand what direction the company's going?
How’s it too much? I’m baffled. If I had a kid between 10-18ish that needed/wanted a non-gaming computer, I would find this to be nearly perfect. $200 is not a ton of money for a computer, and it seems to be just powerful enough I wouldn’t worry about general tasks being frustrating.
It is frustrating though. And more expensive than an n100 box + keyboard, which is both more powerful, and has better software support.
How’s it frustrating? And, more importantly, how’s it stopping people who prefer the n100 route?
The negativity about a $200 Linux computer just baffles me. Nobody’s forcing it on you.
> How’s it frustrating?
I was saying that this part of your previous comment:
> just powerful enough I wouldn’t worry about general tasks being frustrating.
is not true. From experience with pi 5. It was not powerful enough to avoid frustrating an 8-yo. Too many educational resources use the web, and modern browsers are what they are. Maybe this 500+, with an nvme drive, is better, but I wouldn't bet on it.
> how’s it stopping people who prefer the n100 route?
It isn't stopping anyone from anything. This was my advice in case you somehow acquire "a kid between 10-18ish". Don't use overpriced ultra-niche devices unless you have a very clear scenario.
The Pi x00s are targeted at a certain nostalgic parent demographic, but do not, in my limited experience, impress, excite, or interest actual kids. The magic in c64 or apple ii was not in its form factor.
> The negativity about a $200 Linux computer just baffles me. Nobody’s forcing it on you.
You were saying that it's not overpriced for what it is. I said that you can get more performant devices cheaper. That's not negativity, that's conversation. You can say you still like this device for other reasons. Or say "hmm, maybe". Or not say anything at all.
Also, I'm very positive on sub-200 Linux computers, and own many. Including multiple Pis (main series boards and 400 are gathering dust, Zeros are cool as an airplay receiver and laser cutter operator), and several n100 boxes.
I agree it seems strange market placement. I guess the Pi 500 is for kids and the double the price 500+ is for adult hardware hackers who often like mechanical keyboards. However if they're hardware hackers, an all in one keyboard pc makes hacking the hardware redundant?
They'll sell a lot more 500s, but are the profit margins on the 500+ really that great?
>I'm confused as to why they decided to build this when they already previously built the Raspberry Pi 400 keyboard all-in-one for under $100.
As you would have been told in the second paragraph had you actually read the article, this is not a replacement for the existing Pi 500, which costs about that much MSRP.
You're right, I forgot about the Pi 500 which was already that price. Still, it doesn't answer my question about who this is for.
Is their strategy to branch out to more premium prices? Did they see enough uptake of the Pi 500 that they figured there's enough of a niche to want to pay $200 for a bit more?
It's just interesting to me that they started out making cheap little educational devices that were great for the price and now they're making $200 devices. I understand there's a profit-making side to Raspberry Pi now that they're not strictly just a charity, so this must be some long-term bet.
I don't think they are out to compete with anything, but provide educational tools and an amazing community.
So I believe a lot of people simply misunderstand what the Raspberry Pi foundation is trying to do.
Can you educate me on that?
My first thought was that what you want for education is a best bang for your buck computer so that a student has an affordable option. In that sense the most competitive option would be the best choice.
But I’m probably missing some extra feature or idea that makes the pi a better option even if comparatively more expensive? What’s is it?
The best option for education is going to be the system with the best educational resources. Performance per dollar isn’t really relevant, because educational uses don’t need good performance. Most of what you do in an educational environment are simple use cases.
Back in the 90s, schools were filled with either IBM or Apple computers. Not because they were cheap, but because they were predictably compatible with the types of software that educators wanted to use in those environments. They could’ve bought cheaper clones.
That doesn’t really answer my question though, what makes this device have more “educational resources”?
Pretty much any computer that runs windows or a Linux distro will have access to equivalent tooling, wouldn’t it?
The Raspberry Pi foundation is not a computer company, they are an educational charity that just happens to also make a computer. Their primary work is in pedagogy resources, research, and support. A Raspberry Pi has more educational resources, because literally that is the primary work of the company that makes it. They have a full CS curriculum for ages 5-19. The entire reason it exists is as an educational tool. Their mission statement doesn't even mention making a computer -- they simply do that to support their primary education work.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/about/
https://www.raspberrypi.org/research-impact/
https://www.raspberrypi.org/teach/
https://www.raspberrypi.org/learn/
https://codeclub.org/en
It wasn't until later that hobbyists and commercial interests also started using Raspberry Pis for things outside of the classroom. But that's where they came from.
Not really true any more. You've linked to the foundation but the computers are made by Raspberry PI Holdings which is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
The foundation still owns part of the quoted company and retains its educational purpose but it doesn't make the computers now.
> retains its educational purpose but it doesn't make the computers now.
It never did. The structure hasn't changed meaningfully recently, apart from the massive windfall of floating the commercial arm.
The foundation's purpose hasn't changed, its just now a fucktonne richer.
But the thing I'm not quite sure about is why that matters, virtually every other player, apart from adafruit is a corporation all about shareholder value.
hey ya'll timely - https://blog.adafruit.com/2025/09/28/arduino-from-blink-to-t...
Fair enough. Previously the commercial arm was 100% owned by the foundation and the foundation didn't make computers.
Not true that nothing has changed though. Commercial arm has to answer to outside shareholders now which wasn't the case before.
> Pretty much any computer that runs windows or a Linux distro will have access to equivalent tooling, wouldn’t it?
Well it wouldn't have GPIO and really well written docs on how to use those GPIO.
You have to remember how hard (and expensive) embedded linux was until raspberry pi came along. Sure you had gumstix and BeagleBoard, but they were >$300 and needed a fuckton of work to get going. Even more so before you could deploy anything workable to it.
Lattepanda is a thing now & no one is forcing you to buy an Rpi.
How many $200 all in one machines have a fully hackable RGB keyboard with public firmware and docs to make your own firmware, plus a SBC to do basic computer thing?
if thats expensive, then perhaps just buy the 500, it half the price.
obviously QMK exists https://www.keychron.uk/products/keychron-q6-he-qmk-wireless... but that doesn't come with a SBC
Competitive for what?
If I want a home server, then sure its no the right product.
If I want to give a machine that a child can tinker with, and has lots of support /docs on how to do cool shit with it, then this is probably one way.
If thats too expensive, then the plain 500, for half the price.
What is there to tinker? Using the connector on the back? As you pointed out, you get that on the cheaper option.
The mini PCs sold everywhere these days use standard Linux with over the counter components by Intel and AMD that are documented to death. They have the memory, faster CPU, fast storage, multiple HDMI outs, power switches etc. They run Windows if that's your thing. You can actually use them as your main computer if you are a teenager or light user.
This is far from the British computers that theoretically inspired the foundation. Even the cheaper 500 isn't such a great value for real world computer education. I bet more adult hobbyists like me use them than actual children.
I would argue that 400 is not a good value either, for that price you have to deal with occasionally broken file-system because caused by sd card and terrible keyboard. Not a good experience for beginner or a learning child.
People like to criticise x64 but getting a thin client from ebay and ESP32 GPIO board is probably the best bang for your buck.
No one buys raspberry pi to save money anymore, you buy it because you want to use Arm architecture and ability to use Android builds like LineageOS.
> counter components by Intel and AMD that are documented to death
can you show me the GPIO library and documentation for a beelink n100?
where are the i2c pins on the motherboard, do they come with headers, or do we need to solder them in?
> Even the cheaper 500 isn't such a great value, unlike for instance, the foundation's (and mine) beloved ZX Spectrum.
the non plus 500 is £84. The Zxspectrum would be £500 adjusted for inflation.
a decent n100 (ie one that isn't a gamble) is £250, and again is for a different purpose.
Raspberry Pi was always intended to be an educational device. It doesn't have to be strictly the best performer.
It was always intended to be a way to whitewash Broadcom and "educate" as a gateway drug for promoting proprietary closed platforms.
It's not like their competitors are or were that much open. It's not rare in semiconductors that even the catalogues are under NDA.
Look at Arduino for contrast.
Those days have long passed and most of the money is made on the b2b/industrial side. But these days raspberry pis only have a mode in software compatibility and LTS and those are slowly dwindling away. I'd be hard pressed to buy a raspberry pi of any kind these days when RK35XX Devices are available and beat pis at almost every task.
I really hope the pi foundation gets their head out of their behinds and stars competing again.
Not every thing in life is about money or competing.
Yes that why you should buy the slower, worse version for more money. It's not about that. Or competing. It's about buying a brandname original Raspberry Pi^tm^(r) and not the cheaper faster alternative.
> RK35XX Devices are available and beat pis at almost every task.
teoretical performance, yes
practicality, no
availability, no
community, no
manufacturer support, no
expandability, no
etc etc
More powerful PC from whom? Some no-name outfit? Good luck sorting through the flea market dreck.
Raspberry Pi has built the best brand in this space.
Some of the "no-name outfits", like Geekom and Beelink, have built good reputations.
It's possible to score a name-brand, refurbished "thin client" PC for around Raspberry Pi 3 dollars. I scored an HP one for $25, and it fits nicely in the "small fanless PC" niche, runs Linux, and is faster than the corresponding Pi would be.
You get an Intel CPU glued to some generic motherboard. If you don’t need GPIO a random N100 PC can do everything a Raspberry can (and you can get an adapter for that).
is this... just racism, actually? there are a million cool electronics on Amazon from random Shenzhen sellers and while I prefer that my electronics come from countries with better human rights records it's not flea market dreck, it's very much the best stuff you can buy, that you can't get anywhere else.
the attitude that stuff from brands you don't recognize from Shenzhen are "flea market dreck" is exactly why Chinese brands like DVI are winning
I don’t see what racism has to do with it. Most of my electronic components originate from China one way or another, but there’s a real difference in quality between established brands and the random stuff popping up on amazon in the last few years. To review a few experiences I’ve had:
- Wires I bought for breadboard prototyping turned out to not be made of copper after I noticed them sticking to a magnet on my workbench.
- A power supply module I purchased appeared to be using counterfeit chips. The switching frequency didn’t match the TI data sheet for the markings on the chip.
- I wasted several days trying to get an sdcard module to work. I gave up and ordered from adafruit instead and those worked on the first try.
Not to mention the well documented problems with counterfeit sdcards, etc.
With mini PCs, there are a million different ways bargain brands can cut corners that won’t show up immediately.
>is this... just racism, actually? Perhaps but mostly a result of decades of bad consumer experiences. From Malware preinstalled to terrible software support and downright dangerous electronics, chinese hardware from alibaba amazon and ebay is rightfully regarded as questionable, potentially even dangerous until proven otherwise. And without a track record in software updates, any company selling any internet or god forbid cloud connected device is plain irresposible to use until proven otherwise.
> just racism, actually? there are a million cool electronics on Amazon from random Shenzhen sellers
as far as I know you can't be a racist against SoC
> is this... just racism, actually?
Amazon doesn't show you the race of the product owner (and typing this I realise how fucking stupid that sounds)
However Amazon also doesn't care about what shit it sells you, so its perfectly possible to be scammed by some shady org out for a quick buck.
Even if you spend the time to research the right brand, Amazon doesn't actually guarantee that it'll sell you that brand, through a lot of weird bate and switch and "other sellers also offer", and just plain deceit, its not that hard to end up with expensive shite.
I have a bunch of n100s for both home and work. currently we have a 1/4 failure rate (combo and beelink and trigkey green, and others)
I still have all my Pis working, apart from the ones that got wet. (however, thats SD card dependent. Thats at least cheaper.)
> the attitude that stuff from brands you don't recognize from Shenzhen
Its not Shenzhen thats the problem, its Amazon/marketplace trying to make a fast one palming off shite as gold.
Yes but it has the cuteness factor
i come to now think of rpi as the "lego" of computing. just thinking in terms of sticker price misses the point.
You can get a more powerful PC on Amazon for less.
I think you might be missing the point. If you’re looking for the cheapest, most cost-effective computer, and you’re willing to shop for it on Amazon, then I know you’re missing the point.
Noisy does not mean good.
Old Cherry keywitches in Wyse Terminals and computers were the best keyboards ever. They had a great feel with barely there faint click. Totally nothing like the CLONK CLICK that people think made those early IBM keyboards popular. I always hated them. If you're copying a keyboard an old Wyse keyboard from say a WY50 terminal or Wyse386 PC clone and copy that.
Really hated watching the mechanical keyboard fetish spread through an open tech office I used to work at.
So obnoxious.
Beautiful, and currently 9 in stock at the Santa Clara Central Computers store. I'm running out the door!
Visited there the first time ever a few months ago, you're lucky to have both that and the new Micro Center in close proximity. If only every city could be so lucky.
The thing I'd really like to see is a matching display/case/battery system.
Unfortunately, the three displays which the rPi foundation don't have matching proportions.
Has anyone put together a parts list which would work for this?
Kind of thinking I'd want something like a Radio Shack Model 100....
Like the ClockworkPi uConsole or DevTerm?
Sort of --- ideally, it would be an rPi foundation product line, something like the Kano computer kit mayhap?
- a screen sized and proportioned to look good with the rPi 500+ which can be powered by it
- a(n optional) battery pack
- a case (or an STL for 3D printing?) which all the parts would snap into to make a laptop
For bonus points, the screen could have touch (and perhaps stylus?) input.
I'm currently waiting on a Soulcircuit Pilet from the Kickstarter (2 actually), but may have to give this a swing at some point.....
Already a very neat project, but it would be really interesting to:
1. Display a progress bar for the memory limit being reached
2. Feed that progress back to the model
I would be so curious to watch it up to the kill cycle, see what happens, and the display would add tension.
Wrong thread, you probably meant to comment on this other RasPi LLM post? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45396624
Oh shoot, yes I did! Thank you stranger
Jeff Geerling is such a treasure.
As someone who grew up on Atari 8-bits, they missed a trick by not calling this the 800.
Because amiga 500 is way superior to Atari ;-)
At a glance, the keyboard looks uncomfortably small compared to the author’s hands.
It’s a really neat idea, don’t get me wrong, I’m just not sure how much serious typing I’d really be able to do on it.
It's standard size; same key spacing as on my Keychron. Maybe just the camera angle playing tricks!
apparently i'm of a dying breed, but I need a numpad.
Same here, a numpad is a hard requirement for me when buying a new keyboard.
It runs QMK. Put the numpad on a layer. I've done that for years.
It's absolutely a requirement for Blender, which uses it for view positioning and other things.
Beelink should really partner with KeyChron to release something like this but more high-end and usable.
I mean yeah, but that'll cost at least $500 and throttle like a fucker
Title is incorrect. Should be 500+
Updated, thanks.
$200 is $150 too much.
What? Where can you find an entire computer with builtin SSD, RAM and keyboard for $50?
A recycling center.
The amount of waste that happens constantly is mind-boggling.
Yup, and you will get mainline linux kernel support and UEFI too. No mincing around with specially blessed SD card images and non-standard boot procedures.
I was actually curious to see if this actually exists, originally I thought a pi 1 with a cheap keyboard and ssd, but of course the pi 1 doesn't support ssd's anyway. In the end I found an old thinkpad on ebay that technically meets the spec (E-50, i3, 8gb ram and 128gb ssd), though preowned is kind of cheating. New I think you might be right, even without the keyboard.
To be clear I think the price of the pi 500+ is pretty much fine for what it is, I was just curious.