Raspberry Pi 500 Review: The keyboard is the computer, again

https://www.tomshardware.com/raspberry-pi/raspberry-pi-500-review

by rcarmo • 2 years ago

44 13 2 years ago

mg2• 2 years ago

No mention of the weight?

If it is lightweight enough and could be powered by a table which at the same time functions as the monitor, this would be a dream. Finally a mobile Linux solution.

ikurei• 2 years ago

You mean tablet? Has that ever been done, having the tablet provide both power AND monitor to an external computer?

Sounds a bit odd to me, specially considering the tablet is already a full computer.

I love this form factor for its nostalgia, and because it's just cute, but it's wrong for almost all use cases.

spurgu• 2 years ago

Yeah seems rather inefficient to power two computers but only use one.

mg2• 2 years ago

Yes, tablet.

A new iPad with 13" would probably be the lightest external monitor with battery one can get.

Sure, those are full computers but you can't run Linux on them.

jsheard2• 2 years ago

That's unfortunate that they designed in an M.2 NVMe slot and then cut it to shave a few cents off the BOM.

armada651• 2 years ago

If they already designed the case and PCB to support it, perhaps another version that includes the cut features is in the works?

volemo• 2 years ago

It's a bummer they went with the micro HDMI ports despite the RPi 500 not being constrained in size like its SBC siblings (I mean, look at all that space to the right of the USB ports [1]).

Also, I wonder what all those unpopulated pads around the Ethernet port [2] are?

[1] https://assets.raspberrypi.com/static/d9cba3691df3889b1c905e...

[2] https://assets.raspberrypi.com/static/3f5c4569bdef13d9e0bcfc...

jsheard2• 2 years ago

The silkscreen says PoE so I guess the unpopulated components would be for that. PoE would be an odd addition for a keyboard computer though, maybe they intend to use the same PCB in something else?

rcarmo• 2 years ago

Thin clients are a great use case for PoE. Think about a school environment.

But yes, I suspect they will be using the PCB for something else. the NVMe takes too much space to be a "mistake".

TacticalCoder• 2 years ago

"Raspberry Pi 500 Review: The keyboard is the computer, again"

The old (sadly broken) ZX Spectrum, from 1984 or so, that sits on my desk as an ornament to remind me of that great era approves.

aa-jv• 2 years ago

Get that thing fixed, there's no excuses any more, geeze.

nottorp• 2 years ago

Looking around the board, it is hard to miss that there is a large M.2 shaped space. A space that could accommodate up to 2280 sized NVMe SSDs, or even an AI accelerator but there is a catch. There is no connector.

They really don't want to compete with regular desktops :(

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

Discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42364038

Raspberry Pi 500 Review: The keyboard is the computer, again

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