In 2020, we wrote about the DeskPi Pro enclosure for Raspberry Pi 4 with 2.5-inch HDD/SSD bay, full-sized HDMI ports, and a PWM fansink as an alternative to the popular Argon One case that also brings all ports to a single side and improves cable management.
The company informed us of a new low-cost model, the DeskPi Lite, with a more compact design since it lacks the 2.5-inch SATA bay, and two extra USB ports at the front which may be convenient to connect USB flash drives or anything that may be temporarily connected to your Raspberry Pi 4.
DeskPi Lite features:
- All main ports on the rear panel:
- USB Type-C power input
- 2x full-size HDMI ports
- AV port (CVBS + stereo audio)
- 2x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, and Gigabit Ethernet ports directly from the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC
- Font panel ports/features:
- 2x USB 2.0 ports
- 2s status LEDs
- MicroSD card socket
- Power button
- Access to the 40-pin GPIO header from the side panel
- Cooling – Heat Sink with PWM fan
- Other features – Programmable power cut-off, always-on switch (Enable/Disable)
- Materials – Plastic enclosure, CNC alloy aluminum heat sink
The enclosure looks nice to me with all main ports on the rear panel, two extra USB ports, and you should never have to open the case after installation as the MicroSD card and GPIO expansion header are available without having to disassemble the enclosure. DeskPi Lite is using the same driver to control the PWM fan as the DeskPi Pro, and you’ll find it on Github.
You won’t be limited to Raspberry Pi OS (32-/64-bit), as the company also prepared various installation scripts, and tested the driver with Ubuntu Mate (32-bit), Ubuntu (64-bit), Manjaro OS (32-bit), Manjaro OS (64-bit), Kali-linux-arm OS (32-bit), Twister OS v2.0.2 (32-bit), DietPi (64-bit), Volumio OS Version 2021-04-24-Pi (32-bit), and RetroPie OS (32-bit). It does not appear to work in Windows. Considering the size of the heatsink, the fan may not be triggered very often, but obviously, it will depend on the ambient temperature and workload.
Pricing is also pretty good at $29.99 for the basic kit with one DeskPi Lite case, the heatsink, PWN fan, GPIO adapter board, a port adapter board, six thermal pads, two LED indicator lampshade, two M2.5 screws, and a user manual. There are also other kits with a power supply, MicroSD card, cables, and/or a Raspberry Pi 4 board.
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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Yeah, it’s okay.
“You won’t like limited to Raspberry Pi OS (32-/64-bit),”: what does that mean? Typo?
Yep. It should be “You won’t be”…
You are being harassed by typo policemen here and there hahah
Some typos can quickly turn the reading difficult, especially for non-english people like many of us here who start to brute-force a sentence searching for the word that needs to be replaced. And I think the small harassment that result in better quality overall improves the experience on the site. Helping keeping the place pleasant is important IMHO. I tend to think that comments about typos only should be removed once fixed though, for an even better experience.
Its’ ridiculous how dumb there article sounds when their are so many typos. Your right.
…their… and …they’re… and ..you’re…
The sublime humor of someone criticizing another person’s intelligence while committing the same offense. No doubt you’ll swear sarcasm.
Yes I was just joking pal!!
That one was not obvious though. The best would be I don’t make typos!
I like the looks. The Argon is awkward to stack. I wish cases would leave some internal space for GPIO though. I really like to have a RTC.
Is it only available from deskpi or also from some trusted sellers?
I forgot to check for alternative sellers.
It’s available on Amazon (https://amzn.to/3GdKmZX), and I can see Seeed Studio sells the earlier DeskPi Pro. If you want to buy locally, the best way is probably to look for the DeskPi Pro enclosure, and ask if they plan to sell the DeskPi Lite too.
Here amazon is not useable, so maybe Aliexpress…
Local sourcing is not usually an option either, just quickly checked the pro is locally available at 2 shops for about 80$ shipped. Maybe there’s some hope…
Hopefully the Pi 5 design stays mostly the same, so that the ~4 years of Pi 4 cases will work with it.
4 years? lol I bet they won’t release a thing until 2025. It’s being ridiculous this time…
If they’re going to take that long, they should skip whatever Pi 5 they designed internally, and essentially go to Pi 6 (calling it Pi 5). That’s just a shot in the dark though.
But they got a big capital infusion recently and they move a lot of units. They could surprise us.
While RPI borrow money, Amlogic reports Author: EqualOcean News, Yuchen Fu Aug 18, 2021 09:45 AM (GMT+8) During the six months through June, the company generated CNY 2.0 billion in revenue, with a year-on-year growth of 111.8%. Jan 17 2022 Today, the Chinese hi-tech enterprise, Jingchen ( Amlogic ) has announced that it has recorded an anticipated revenue of 4.74 billion to 4.79 billion yuan in 2021, up 73.10 percent to 74.93 percent year on year, and a net profit of 7.8 percent attributable to the parent company’s owners. From 100 million yuan to 840 million yuan, a 579.24 percent… Read more »
What? What a Pi5 would it be?
What a Pi6 would be?
They always have the target to launch at $35, and now they even had a increase in price because of the world situation.
How would they launch a Pi5 like that?
The only Pi that was released fast was the Pi3, Pi2 and Pi4 took some years to launch and now should even take longer.
And its not like Pi users are in dire need of a bigger performance.
If they want more performance, there are other alternatives
The PWM fan control does not work and there are errors in some of the install scripts. Power off on shutdown does work.
Small fans could be very annoying, so no, thanks. I had DeskPi Pro, so it is comnig from my real experience. On the top of that Raspberry Pi 4 has problems with USB ports when connected to KVM switch. I tried 2 and found somebody else having same experience. So I got rid of both in favour of Radxa products.
Will the heat shield block Wi-Fi/BT signal?