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Raspberry Pi 500+

raspberrypi.com

271–280 of 309 posts

Re: Raspberry Pi 500+

#271
post #70

An improvement over Pi 500 in many ways, but adding keys to the right of heavily-used (r) Shift / Enter / Backspace would make it much harder to find these keys without looking at the keyboard. The previous version also had half-height arrows that had some negative space ("not keys") above them, and so it was easier to position the fingers over the arrows just by feel; this one makes it harder. I'd hope the next gene…

> keys to the right of heavily-used (r) Shift / Enter / Backspace would make it much harder to find these keys without looking at the keyboard. I'd think that people who prefer mechanical keyboards already have the muscle memory so that that isn't a problem. Personally, I depend on Delete and Home/End/Page Up/Page Down for my text/code editing and find any keyboard without them to be deficient.

> people who prefer mechanical keyboards already have the muscle memory

The problem with that is that every mechanical keyboard is different, so that muscle memory needs a refresh with each new keyboard. More importantly, people who are used to Pi 400 or Pi 500 (non-plus) have a different muscle memory.

> I depend on Delete and Home/End/Page Up/Page Down

For me, Fn-⌫, Fn-←, Fn-→, Fn-↑ and Fn-↓, respectively, do the job. On my keyboard, Fn is the button in the lower left corner, so it's easy to find by feel, ⌫ is in top right corner so it's easy to find by feel, and the negative space above half-height arrows makes it easy to find the arrows too.

Re: Raspberry Pi 500+

#272
Nice! I hope keyboard computers will find their niche market. I've been looking for one that I could carry around, mostly in-between home and my coworking where I already have displays. My MacBook works just fine but I've grown to dislike carrying around a laptop. It's a bit heavy, there's the temptation of using it everywhere, and it's just average on comfort when sitting in front of a bigger display.

The RPI computers aren't a good fit for software dev, the closest thing I found is Project CJ64 [0] that relies on a Framework board, but that's not a finished product.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQEN17L84jg

Re: Raspberry Pi 500+

#273
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the original 500's release I have never seen a single forum post (in generic tech discussions) about the product. In other words, for me who spends lots of timing reading/watching discussions/reviews of gadgets, this never came up once, anecdotally. I don't think you are alone in your confusion.

One has been sitting in my hallway closet running a pretty complex HA setup. It has been so rock solid that I more or less forgot about it.

But I assume that's not the pi 500? I mean, this series has/is a keyboard, and if you are just running it as a server, you save some money by buying a regular version

Re: Raspberry Pi 500+

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs invented the "+" sign at Reed College! /s

Yes but it was much more stylish: ⌘ /s

No, it was not Steve that found the Symbol but Susan Kare the Macintosh graphics artist. https://www.folklore.org/Swedish_Campground.html

Re: Raspberry Pi 500+

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can buy a near mint lenovo l14 gen 3 from 2022 for $200. I know this because I bought one for my in-laws a few days ago.

Why that specific model, tho? I'm looking for something like that. Are there other worthy models?

I bought that specific model because they're a step up from the E-series (which is actually good now), but not as expensive as the X or T series. I'm very familiar with Thinkpads (I personally have owned 5, and have bought 3 for family, all used, all functioning perfectly). That specific model does not have soldered ram, has lots of replacement parts, is still fairly new, I'd owned an L14 Gen 1, and to be honest, it was just a good deal considering it was in mint condition.

With thinkpads, assuming you're buying used, you can pay the premium for a T or X series, and get a laptop with essentially the same parts, but maybe a better screen or chassis, or you can save money and go with the L or E series. NB, the T and X series oftentimes have soldered RAM, so if you're not satisfied with the amount of ram already in it, do your due diligence to ensure that the model support using SODIMM/replacing the ram.

Re: Raspberry Pi 500+

#276
post #24

$200 and still micro HDMI? No, thanks. Who is this product for? I've abandoned RPi after the rise of sub $200-PCs on Amazon, which usually come with power supply, on/off buttons, dual full size HDMIs, SSDs etc etc.

That's fine if you want a PC which is totally orthogonal to what the Pi is originally for.

The 500+ doesn't deliver on the original RPi scenarios either.

Re: Raspberry Pi 500+

#277

I've bought pretty much all of the pis over the years, and was shocked at how capable the pi5 is at doing everything I need from a computer, including programming in a heavy IDE. Unfortunately, it's a non starter for doing anything serious on though as there's still AFAIK no support for full disk encryption in the installer, even if installing to SSD. Such a lost opportunity to be a 'PC' replacement.

Can't you just run a normal Linux distribution if you want that, or does that not work any more?

Re: Raspberry Pi 500+

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but it was much more stylish: ⌘ /s

No, it was not Steve that found the Symbol but Susan Kare the Macintosh graphics artist. https://www.folklore.org/Swedish_Campground.html

Yeah, that means it was Steve. :P

/s

(joking, relax..)

Re: Raspberry Pi 500+

#279
post #207

That's a nice gadget. But now: raspeberry's company has tons of money and demonstrated its ability to deliver good quality, inexpensive computers. So WHY don't they make a linux mobile PHONE ? That would change a lot of things

The problem of a Linux phone is not the hardware, it's the software. Are you doing to run a desktop OS on it? No. And if you want something like Android but not Android itself, how are you getting enough quality apps made? What about things like banking apps, who is going to port those? While I would like a pure Linux phone, I think the only reasonable course of action is Android with something like Samsung's DeX on…

They just need to add slot for sim and 4g/5g support, you leave the rest to the community to play with, there is Ubuntu Touch, LineageOS, SailfishOS, postmarketOS, Plasma Mobile, Tizen, KaiOS, Mobian, PureOS, GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, /e/OS, Replicant, Droidian, Maemo Leste etc. - if there would be hardware available, people would play with it.

Re: Raspberry Pi 500+

#280
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a combination of things: 1) The company "sold out". That is, in times of limited supply they prioritized fulfilling large compute module orders instead of the hobbyist market that initially supported them. To be fair if I was running that company I'd have done the exact same thing, it's obviously the right financial choice. Just, you know, it'll sting for the market that was shunned. 2) They got expens…

All of this plus, in regards to, number 2, x86 got cheap. For $80(well, pre tariffs at least) I can deal with a Pi 5s quirks and slowness, or I can buy a Radxa X4 with an Intel N100, a built in 2230 M.2 slot, 2.5GbE, and a Pi Pico with full GPIO. Software support? I have UEFI; literally anything I care to install will install from an ISO. Literally the Radxa’s faults all boil down to the same faults the Pi has with t…

Did Radxa ever iron out the heat sink issue with the X4? IIRC, when released, the official heat sink needed shimming to make proper contact with the processor.
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