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

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

#101

Post by whitehexagon »

Ekaros wrote: post #59
sho_hn wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I'd expect a little lid to access the M.2 slot in the case design. "It's not that kind of product", but maybe it should be: Higher capacity microSD cards are more expensive than NVMe alternatives, which are generally faster.

Not to forget write cycles... Which can be real issue if you actually use system as desktop. In general NVME drives would likely be more reliable in long run. I really would not enjoy storage being corrupted or dead on this kind of device.

I use a Pi400 daily but boot it from a small USB stick. So no SD card needed, and it seems faster.

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

#102

Post by signaturefish »

supermatt wrote: post #94
supermatt wrote: post #66

Seems like they should have used a compute module instead of building out a new PCB? Any idea why that wasn't done? Pretty damning not to dogfood your own product.

is this a dumb question or something? seems people dont like this comment and I cant figure out why.

I don't think it's a dumb question, though I guess some might question its relevance. Side-comments can be interesting, though.

I don't know why they did it, but it follows the same pattern as the pi400 - develop a whole new board, rather than a daughterboard for the pi4 compute module. If I had to guess, it's probably about reducing e-waste: if someone wants a compute module and it's out of stock but there are pi500s available, why wouldn't they buy a pi500, strip the compute module out and dump the rest of the machine in the bin?

And to be fair to them, they're dogfooding a fair amount - the RP1 and the RP2 are in the design, rather than a generic southbridge and keyboard controller.

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

#103

Post by pizza234 »

Ekaros wrote: post #65
surgical_fire wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but that is true for basically every consumer product. Cars, electronics, you name it. "You can buy old restored/refurbished thing cheaper than a cheap brand new thing" is hardly a very insightful take. Does that mean that there is no market for "cheap brand new thing"?

There is market for cheap new things. But this is at price point that for most people in the world it is not anymore "cheap". Around 100 is at level you kinda need to think about it. If it was half of that like Pis used to be back in time I would agree for it to be cheap. Specially when you start adding up things. Like monitor, mouse, power. The total adds up and somehow it doesn't feel like great deal for most incom…

In a few months there will be second hand RPi 500's on sale, presumably in the range of 40/60 $, so that price should be used for comparison against second-hand products, not the price as new.

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

#104

Post by pizza234 »

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?

For home (mini) server use cases, cheap/unbranded x86 SBCs are also my favorites, especially because they can be easily expanded (I've put two disks for reliability).

Also, at least until some time ago, ARM compatibility was not always guaranteed by open source projects (I think nowadays it became ubiquitous).

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

#105

Post by ajb »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #87
ajb wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that quote is a bit nuts. The reality is that the pi isn't a general educational product - it's a computing educational product. And that is fine. If a kid wants to learn about programming, about what goes on under the hood, it's a fine addition to their locked down school Chromebook.

>about what goes on under the hood But you can do that on a regular laptop/computer running Linux sine that's what RPi also runs. You don't need an additional RPi to learn what's under the hood of a device running Linux.

One good reason is that you can try stuff that would screw your laptop. Whereas with a pi it's just flashing the card again.

I used to work for a company that sold pi kits for schools, you could let 7-9 year olds try stuff that teachers and parents would not let them do to a laptop. Totally breaking a computer and fixing it again is a great experience, but not one you want to have on your primary machine

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

#106

Post by cdt5050 »

dagw wrote: post #61
thiht wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have absolutely loved getting this as my first personal computer. The form factor is so cool, and even living in a first world country, that price tag is incredible. I really don't understand most of the comments, who cares if it just has micro hdmi ports, no nvme (whatever it is, I don't think I would care if I was 16, and I don't think I care today either) or whatever you think is missing? It costs less tha…

16 year old me, back when I was 16, would also have found this amazing. The thing is that today, lots of things cost less than $100 and runs linux. Go on Ebay or Facebook marketplace, and you'll find a near unlimited supply of $100 laptops that will run Linux at least as well as this will, and there you even get a screen. Go to AliExpress and you'll find mini PCs with similar specs to this for around $100, and you'll…

The Raspberry Pi has three huge advantages over those other options:

1) GPIO, letting you do things like learning to flash LEDs or controlling robotic arms and getting ready to use a Pi Zero for robots or such.

2) Cool add-ons, like the Pi Camera or AI modules, and a product family such as compute modules, Pi Zero, etc. A strong third party market of Hats, etc.

3) SUPPORT. Pi 500 is available as part of a kit with the official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide, which I know from experience in teaching people interested in learning this kind of stuff, is a really awesome getting started resource. But it doesn't stop there -- Raspberry Pi Press has a lot of freely available books that teach various topics, AND a monthly magazine to teach and inspire. Not to mention countless tutorials meant specifically for Pi and Pi OS.

This is really, really awesome.

Those ebay specials aren't going to satisfy any of these. And while direct RPi competitors do provide a response to the first point, they get weak on the second point, the RPi is pretty unique in the third point.

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

#107

Post by esskay »

tacticalturtle wrote: post #100
esskay wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if its a one off purchase for use as a general pc or learning tool that doesn't require GPIO something like a second hand thinkcentre or optiplex is probably the best option. They'll be cheaper than a Pi 5 or Pi 500, plus often come with a keyboard and mouse in addition to the power supply. Sure, they arent going to be quite as power efficient but you're getting significantly more for your money, as well as r…

I’m all for second hand, and have gone in this direction myself for use cases, but you do need some bare minimum level of technical competency, or someone to guide you. I’ve purchased several SFFs on eBay, and had some experiences with broken hardware. If you’re purchasing this as learning tool, particular for kids/teenagers, that’s not going to be a great experience. That’s really the market where something like the…

I'm not really referring to broken / questionable hardware here. I'm talking about ex office stock thats been flashed with a fresh copy of Windows and is ready to go out of the box, the same way any new PC would. That's far more accessible than a Pi.

I'd argue you need a lot more technical competency to get a pi running than a fresh out of the box mini pc.

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

#108

Post by cdt5050 »

surgical_fire wrote: post #27
gchadwick wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find that communities like these are far too focused on "TECHNICALLY CORRECT". Like, yeah, there are some things that technically are faster and cheaper than a Raspberry Pi, like that ebay special or that Alibaba-only SBC that's a direct copy of orange pi, or whatever.

But when it comes to things you can't glean from spec sheets, they utterly fail. Like the most important thing: the human experience. Like when it comes to Pi competitors, nothing even comes close to the Pi in having such an ecosystem of learning resources. I personally really appreciate the MagPi magazine as it's a great source of inspiration.

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

#109

Post by esskay »

smileybarry wrote: post #97
esskay wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As others pointed out, yes you can. But you can get even better specs and at a lower price on eBay. Any of the Lenovo or Dell mini pc's are cheaper (around £50-£70 depending on the model) on eBay and SIGNIFICANTLY more useful. For people buying these as a computer the power difference isn't something that even enters their mind. How many average people do you see debating one tv over another because it uses 5w more p…

But that's comparing apples (new computer, whether N100 mini PC or RPi 400/500) to oranges (used/refurbished office mini PCs).

Even excusing used hardware you can litterally buy brand new ready to go windows based pc's in that price bracket.

Prices from Pimoroni. The price of a Pi 500 is £84.60 for the unit + £11.40 for the PSU + £3.90 for a micro hdmi adaptor (which I'm adding because almost everyone will need one). Giving you a total of £99.90 plus shipping. You'll also probably need more storage as it only comes with the 32gb micro sd (down to about 27gb after OS space) but I'll exclude that from this for now.

- For £74.99 including delivery & PSU you can get a Kuyia Win10 Pro Celeron J4105 mini pc with 8GB rand and 256gb SSD.

- For £80 including delivery & PSU you can get the GMKtec G3 N100 with 8GB Ram, 256GB SSD, or pay £10 more an get 16GB Ram, 512GB SSD.

Theres so many of these around now. I know people have a soft spot for the Pi but it's really not the best option for most applications, and hasn't been for a long time now.

All of these, for a desktop experience are better. All of them have hardware Windows licenses should they be wanted. All of them support Linux, all of them are upgradable.

Unless you need GPIO the prices just do not make sense, and if you're willing to buy used/refurb the leap in specifications is even higher.

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

#110

Post by cdt5050 »

andridk wrote: post #38

I get that the target group probably is fine with running everything off of an SD card. But, I still think it's a mistake to not offer an M.2 slot without soldering. The smaller drives are very affordable and the performance difference is huge.

The performance difference is practically unnoticeable in day-to-day desktop use. People don't really care about 15 second vs. 20 second boot time, and that first boot of Firefox is going to be another pretty meh comparison. Subsequent boots are going to be loading small enough data that the difference between will be meaningless.

The main appeal to an NVMe on the Pi isn't speed, it's cost effectiveness. SSDs are cheaper at larger capacities than SD cards. A 1tb SD card is 2x the cost of a cheaper 1tb SSD.

Storage speed is a bigger consideration on something like a gaming PC or a video editing machine, where you're going to be streaming gigabytes of textures/videos off of storage, not just trying to launch Firefox.

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