Raspberry Pi 500 Review: The keyboard is the computer, again | Hacker News Reader

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

tomshardware.com

44 pointsrcarmo13 comments

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...

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?

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".

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

> 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 :(

> "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.

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

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