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

61–70 of 134 posts

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

#61

Post by dagw »

thiht wrote: post #47
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 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 get an x86 CPU and the option of also running Windows. There is lots of competition in the "costs less than $100 and runs Linux" market, and it is not clear why this is necessarily better.

who cares if it just has micro hdmi ports, no nvme

Clearly lots of people. Choosing to need a special 'weird' cable, that very few people have lying around, to plug it into a monitor or choosing the storage option with the much worse IO performance and reliability just seem like strange choices, given that making the 'right' choice probably wouldn't increase the cost by all that much.

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

#62

Post by Citizen_Lame »

surgical_fire wrote: post #40
Ekaros wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the thing many are starting to feel that they are not cheap anymore. At least compared to some things like refurb laptops and such. Just recently saw 249€ Lenovo laptop with Ryzen 5 4500U, 16GB RAM and 480GB SSD. Not new, but still, more powerful and having storage too.

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"?

N100 box is new and cheaper. 256GB, 16GB RAM HDMI, 2.5 Gb network, case, charger etc. Raspberry Pi is pointless as a "cheap" computer. It's good if you you are building something which requires GPIO.

So perhaps you are the one out of touch.

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

#63

Post by Cumpiler69 »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #53
Cumpiler69 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 I hear this repeated over and over again in RPi threads, but nobody ever provides any proof of developing nations using RPis as affordable desktop computers apart from some PR articles every now and then involving partnerships and donations. This feels more of an opi…

It's because in reality it just doesn't work that way, the reality of what education really needs is ways to collaborate on documents and sync those back to teachers, ways to broadcast or watch recordings of lessons and most of all reliability and control. In reality these needs are better served by Chromebooks or Android tablets. The fact that the Pi is a real computer and runs the real version of Python on a real O…

>Like what use would that have been?

Advertising, PR, virtue signaling and maybe getting some kids into some embedded linux development who will then grow up and use the Pi in commercial products at work.

Win on all fronts for the RPi corpora-, sorry I meant foundation.

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

#64

Post by Citizen_Lame »

tsak wrote: post #48
akho wrote: post #42

In a world where N100 exists, only Zero and Nano Pis are interesting. The main/x00 lines are not good deals for desktop or self-hosting use. Not sure what the point the monitor makes.

Can you spec a N100 system with 8GB of RAM and at least 32 GB of (slow) SSD and land around the £100 / $120 price point of a Raspberry Pi 500 with 27W power adapter? Not to mention the GPIO header.

Yes you can mate. In fact less then a £100 for n100, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM, just look it up on AliExpress. You have promos on hotukdeals all the time.

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

#65

Post by Ekaros »

surgical_fire wrote: post #40
Ekaros wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the thing many are starting to feel that they are not cheap anymore. At least compared to some things like refurb laptops and such. Just recently saw 249€ Lenovo laptop with Ryzen 5 4500U, 16GB RAM and 480GB SSD. Not new, but still, more powerful and having storage too.

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 income levels.

Same goes for their other products. Numbers just don't make sense for lot of people.

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

#67

Post by itfossil »

Love to see and I've been waiting for the Pi500 release for awhile. I'm running my house on Pi400s so the Pi500 will be a huge upgrade. They are still silent, have double the RAM, triple the speed, so whats not to like? Plus they will fit into the exact same desk crevice where the current Pi400s live.

New Pi day is the best day!

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

#68

Post by jens-c »

Unfortunately, it seems it cannot be used just as a keyboard for other devices.

I have a similar gripe with iMacs and most all-in-one PCs that they cannot be used as a monitor for other devices. Once the PC/Mac inside becomes obsolete, the whole device becomes useless even though it has an excellent display that still works.

This is kind of the keyboard equivalent of this.

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

#69

Post by supermatt »

jens-c wrote: post #68

Unfortunately, it seems it cannot be used just as a keyboard for other devices. I have a similar gripe with iMacs and most all-in-one PCs that they cannot be used as a monitor for other devices. Once the PC/Mac inside becomes obsolete, the whole device becomes useless even though it has an excellent display that still works. This is kind of the keyboard equivalent of this.

Are you sure about that? Other pis can use gadget mode to act as a device (like a keyboard). Has that been specifically disabled somehow for the pi500?

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

#70

Post by mciancia »

tsak wrote: post #48
akho wrote: post #42

In a world where N100 exists, only Zero and Nano Pis are interesting. The main/x00 lines are not good deals for desktop or self-hosting use. Not sure what the point the monitor makes.

Can you spec a N100 system with 8GB of RAM and at least 32 GB of (slow) SSD and land around the £100 / $120 price point of a Raspberry Pi 500 with 27W power adapter? Not to mention the GPIO header.

Yes

N100 with 8gb ram and 256gb ssd is around 130eur on AliExpress

Post reply on HN