The Raspberry Pi Foundation has recently launched the Raspberry Pi 4 keyboard computer with impressive performance thanks to a well-designed cooling solution, and I think it’s a great tool for kids (and adults) who may want to carry a Raspberry Pi around.
However, you’d still need a display in each location, so until the foundation releases the Raspberry Pi 4000 laptop next year (full disclose: I made that up!), it might be cool to have a portable display coming with the keyboard PC. That’s what Waveshare is offering with two kits combining a Raspberry Pi 400 together with a 7-inch or 13.3-inch HDMI touchscreen display and other accessories.
Not quite as portable as a laptop but it gets close. Here’s the full list of accessories in the kits:
- Raspberry Pi 400 Kit with keyboard PC with UK keyboard (sadly the only layout option for now), power supply, HDMI cable, preloaded microSD card with Raspberry Pi OS, mouse, and Beginner guide.
- 40-pin ribbon cable
- Display with back stand (one or the other)
- 13.3-inch IPS display with 1920×1080 resolution, toughened glass cover, up to 10-point capacitive touch support, with embedded HiFi speaker
- 7-inch IPS display with 1024×600 resolution, toughened glass cover, up to 5-point capacitive touch support
- USB-A to micro B cable
- 12V power adapter for display
The latter is not really a problem, since as we’ll see below the displays appear to be sold separately which also means if you already own a Raspberry Pi 400 you could just add a display.
The kits are sold for $179.99 and $266.99 plus shipping on Waveshare website, but you’ll also find them on Aliexpress for significantly more at this time, albeit with free shipping.
If I understand correctly, you can also purchase the displays separately with the “7-inch Capacitive Touch Screen LCD (H) with Case” going for $71.99, and the “13.3inch Capacitive Touch Screen LCD with Case V2” for $159.99.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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The right size seems to be 10-12 inches here. I wouldn’t be surprised if next time they come up with a simple laptop exposing the GPIOs.
The main fact is you can buy a Laptop at those prices, either new or refurbished with a warranty. Even a secondhand PC out strips those prices. So unless you need a gpio or sdcard boot, why bother.. Need a gpio? Buy a RPI Zero to play with.
RPI 400 is amazing. the only downside : it have an RPI inside it.
I don’t like the RP400. It’s just a gimmick to get peoples attention. But there is no good reason why you would use this. The keyboard is worse than any $30 keyboard you can find. The wondershare displays are even worse than the fakes. Bad soldering to no soldering on their product. HDMI broke off after less than a week light use. Bought a clone for half the money and it’s still working well after 4 years heavy use on my trips. Buy a good SBC(RK3399), a good keyboard. And a good display. You’ll be way under the $267 they… Read more »
Will definitely buy pi laptop
A place called Elecrow already made a laptop. Their first effort was the CrowPi and now the CrowPi2. Both were Kickstarter campaigns. I have three of them for teaching electronics. Very nice well thought out designs. There’s also a company called SunFounder that is now working on a tablet computer. It’s in its third iteration called RasPad3, it’s a bit bulky, but works as advertised and is also great for teaching. I also found it on Kickstarter, but both companies sell them off campaign from their websites.
Yes, true. I reviewed their CrowPi 2 a little while ago.
If the Raspberry Pi Foundation can make one they may be able to bring the price down since they’d probably sell higher volumes.
Far from usable. 3 wires connect to screen: power, HDMI & touchscreen signal. And if I’m not mistaken the screen doesn’t have a speaker.
The 13″ one has an internal speaker.
A single USB-C cable for power, video+audio, and touch would be ideal. I don’t know if multiple cables is a deal breaker, but the prices certainly are for many of these portable displays.
Why not get the Pinebook Pro instead? Solid build, RK3399 etc.
I think they have different use cases. I see the Raspberry Pi 400 mostly useful to educators. They buy the thing, load the programs used to teach kids on it, and get on with their day. Most education work can probably be done with a Pinebook Pro too, but it would need extra work.
I would love to get my hands on a Pi CM4 based laptop similar to a PinebookPro, which also exposes the GPIO and CSI interfaces! Hopefully if they maintain backward compatibility for the pin-out in the future CMs with the CM4, it would be a very convenient platform for playing with the compute modules.