Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

tomshardware.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 134 posts

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

#21

Post by [deleted] »

dijit wrote: post #5
elashri wrote: post #4

I understand that peoppe usually use medium PI boards for electronic projects. But other that, isn't it more cost effective and organized if you get minipc (something like N100 kit) for projects like backups machine or selfhosting projects?

Largely, yes. Here's a much better and more in depth deep-dive into N100 vs Pi's by ExplainingComputers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hekzpSH25lk There's trade-offs in both directions, but largely rPI has marginally lower performance and power consumption compared to the N100. If you're not touching GPIO or need to stay under 15W strictly, then the PI is the better option. N100's seem to be slightly more expensive…

[deleted]

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

#22

Post by sho_hn »

AlanYx wrote: post #20
kiririn wrote: post #9

> 45% colour gamut $100 for an e-waste monitor is poor value, for that money you can get a portable monitor with full sRGB, high refresh rate, etc

It's strange that they don't specify what gamut. I think it's possible that they mean 45% of the entire CIE gamut, which would be slightly larger than sRGB. (It's an odd way of specifying a monitor though, usually manufacturers specify as a fraction of either Adobe RGB or Display P3.)

DCI-P3 is about 45% of CIE, so maybe that?

The product brief says 16.2M color depth, though, which would mean it's 6-bit + FRC which is bizarre to couple with an aim for DCI-P3, so perhaps not.

Quite an odd product!

I assume these are mostly all trade-ofs so you can power it on one of the Pi's USB-A ports without an additional PSU required.

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

#23

Post by schappim »

I’ve been using the new Pi Monitor for a couple of weeks. It’s very reminiscent of the easel-style Apple Displays from back in the day.

I’ve mainly been using it as a second display but plan to wall-mount it to show the family calendar, as they’ve made it really easy to flip the back leg and hang it on a hook.

I think these are going to sell really well into education and back offices.

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

#24

Post by poulpy123 »

elashri wrote: post #4

I understand that peoppe usually use medium PI boards for electronic projects. But other that, isn't it more cost effective and organized if you get minipc (something like N100 kit) for projects like backups machine or selfhosting projects?

A raspberry pi 5 is still 2 to 3 times less power hungry than a N100. If one has no need for the power, it makes totally sense to just use a raspberry.

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

#25

Post by my123 »

sho_hn wrote: post #22
AlanYx wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's strange that they don't specify what gamut. I think it's possible that they mean 45% of the entire CIE gamut, which would be slightly larger than sRGB. (It's an odd way of specifying a monitor though, usually manufacturers specify as a fraction of either Adobe RGB or Display P3.)

DCI-P3 is about 45% of CIE, so maybe that? The product brief says 16.2M color depth, though, which would mean it's 6-bit + FRC which is bizarre to couple with an aim for DCI-P3, so perhaps not. Quite an odd product! I assume these are mostly all trade-ofs so you can power it on one of the Pi's USB-A ports without an additional PSU required.

45% NTSC is what I'd expect

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

#26

Post by gchadwick »

0xEF wrote: post #19

A lot of scorn for this latest offering from Pi, but I think perspective is important here. No, most of us here do not have a use for the Pi 500 or it's display, but in part so the world where a lightweight low-consumption device can open some doors for connectivity and learning, this looks like a great solution. We tend to forget that not everyone on the planet has the same resources or needs we do.

I do find HN threads about R-Pi products weigh heavily negative. Yet despite the apparent many major issues that keep getting pointed out R-Pi seems to keep going from strength to strength. Maybe they understand their own customers and their market better than commenters here?

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

#27

Post by surgical_fire »

gchadwick wrote: post #26
0xEF wrote: post #19

A lot of scorn for this latest offering from Pi, but I think perspective is important here. No, most of us here do not have a use for the Pi 500 or it's display, but in part so the world where a lightweight low-consumption device can open some doors for connectivity and learning, this looks like a great solution. We tend to forget that not everyone on the planet has the same resources or needs we do.

I do find HN threads about R-Pi products weigh heavily negative. Yet despite the apparent many major issues that keep getting pointed out R-Pi seems to keep going from strength to strength. Maybe they understand their own customers and their market better than commenters here?

HN crowd is solid in some very narrow technical subjects. The more you deviate from those, the worse. It quickly degenerates into some incredibly stupid takes from people that clearly think very highly of themselves, and are unable to do any introspection.

R-Pi offerings are fine. It is supposed to be a cheap computer, and they could get something that costs less than 200 bucks with a monitor. Definitely not bad.

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

#28

Post by amelius »

5d41402abc4b wrote: post #11
elashri wrote: post #4

I understand that peoppe usually use medium PI boards for electronic projects. But other that, isn't it more cost effective and organized if you get minipc (something like N100 kit) for projects like backups machine or selfhosting projects?

You can get a few generations old mini PCs with 16GB RAM and SSD at the same price as a PI.

Used, so not a fair comparison.

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

#29

Post by amelius »

danielheath wrote: post #17
5d41402abc4b wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a few generations old mini PCs with 16GB RAM and SSD at the same price as a PI.

You can get brand new, current-gen (Alder Lake) mini PCs with those specs for the same price as a PI + storage + case + PSU.

Where?

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

#30

Post by sho_hn »

gchadwick wrote: post #26
0xEF wrote: post #19

A lot of scorn for this latest offering from Pi, but I think perspective is important here. No, most of us here do not have a use for the Pi 500 or it's display, but in part so the world where a lightweight low-consumption device can open some doors for connectivity and learning, this looks like a great solution. We tend to forget that not everyone on the planet has the same resources or needs we do.

I do find HN threads about R-Pi products weigh heavily negative. Yet despite the apparent many major issues that keep getting pointed out R-Pi seems to keep going from strength to strength. Maybe they understand their own customers and their market better than commenters here?

I have mixed feelings about their products :-)

I use them quite a lot for various projects (mosty recently in my e-piano build, where the Pi 5 performs admirably pulling off low-latency audio for my piano VSTs - https://eikehein.com/piano), but while I vibe with the whole "sets a known standard, just works, network effects" advantages, there's some real annoyances that run counter to that.

For example, I'd expect the standard SBC from the Good Ones to have great upstream support, but it turns out a vanilla kernel doesn't support the Pi 5 until perhaps 6.13 due to lacklustre upstreaming efforts, meaning most alternative distros to the patched-up Raspberry Pi OS still don't support the Pi 5 properly. (I ended up managing to bake up a modified Fedora 41 because I wanted the much newer audio stack in said piano, but only with a lot of effort.)

And yes, the dreaded Micro HDMI ports, perhaps the weakest, shoddiest, most prone-to-failure port around ... why they'd put those on the keyboard one (the 500 linked here) is beyond me.

That said, I like a lot of the strategic choices they made with the RP1, and I suspect there will be more interesting HW from them coming down the pipe over time.

Post reply on HN