The Raspberry Pi 500+ is an upgrade to the Raspberry Pi 500 keyboard PC, getting a mechanical keyboard with RGB LED lighting, a 256GB NVMe SSD, and 16GB LPDDR4x memory.
Apart from that, the rest of the ports and features are exactly the same for the new “Plus” model: two 4K-capable micro HDMI ports, Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0, three USB ports, a microSD card slot, and a 40-pin GPIO header.
Raspberry Pi 500+ specifications:
- SoC – Broadcom BCM2712
- CPU – Quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 processor @ 2.4GHz
- GPU – VideoCore VII GPU with support for OpenGL ES 3.1 graphics, Vulkan 1.2
- VPU – 4Kp60 HEVC decoder
- System Memory – 16GB LPDDR4X-4267 SDRAM
- Storage
- 256 GB NVMe SSD preloaded with Raspberry Pi OS; connected to M.2 PCIe 2280 socket
- MicroSD card slot
- Video Output – 2x micro HDMI ports up to 4Kp60
- Networking
- Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port
- Dual-band 802.11b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0
- USB
- 2x USB 3.0 ports
- 1x USB 2.0 ports
- User input – 84-, 85-, or 88-key mechanical keyboard, depending on layout. Gateron Blue KS-33 low-profile switches
- Expansion – 40-pin GPIO header accessible from the outside
- Misc
- Power Button on the keyboard
- RGB LED lighting
- Power Supply – 5V DC via USB-C connector
- Dimensions – 312 x 123.06 x 35.76 mm
- Temperature Range – 0 to 50°C
- Lifetime – In production until at least January 2030
The change that will impact the price and user experience the most is probably the mechanical keyboard with replaceable keycaps and programmable RGB lighting. The 16GB RAM and 256GB NVMe SSD will also improve performance, especially when multitasking, but I wouldn’t expect any major improvements in benchmarks, except storage benchmarks.
Few will be surprised to find out a new Raspberry Pi keyboard PC launched with an NVMe SSD, because a teardown of the Raspberry Pi 500 already reveals a footprint for an M.2 PCIe socket compatible with 2230, 2242, 2260, and 2280 modules.
On the software side of things, the keyboard still runs Raspberry Pi OS, but benefits from two new packages for keyboard configuration and firmware, which should be in the latest Pi OS image, but can also be installed as follows:
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sudo apt install rpi-keyboard-config sudo apt install rpi-keyboard-fw-update |
Instructions on replacing the SSD, swapping out the default keycaps, and configuring the keyboard and RGB lighting can be found on the relevant documentation page.
The Raspberry Pi 500+ is by far the most expensive product from the company, even beating the $120 Raspberry Pi 5 16GB SBC, as it sells for $200, and a full kit with power supply, a mouse, a micro HDMI to HDMI cable, and other accessories goes for $220. Raspberry Pi sent us an early sample for review, but we are on the road and will only be able to check it out sometime in November.
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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Probably the biggest disadvantage of this series is that there is no second USB C port thanks to which this keyboard could be used as a normal computer keyboard.
Because the big value add would be for this to be a $200 mediocre mechanical keyboard?
Yes, because it wouldn’t take up space on my desk. I’d use it like a regular computer.
It would give the ability to repurpose the device for anyone who gets sick of using the Pi 5, temporarily needs the keyboard for another system, or someone who gets a used one for free or semi-broken.
Maybe someone has already made that work, idk.
Do away with hdmi and get usbc dp alternate mode ports, no increase in board real estate much more flexibility
Just pair it with a usbc capable screen no psu required all handled by the screen
Micro HDMI is smaller than USB-C, so this would break case compatibility yet again. It seems inevitable that they must do this though.
There may be a technical reason why they want HDMI on all boards. While USB-C was supposed to have an HDMI Alt Mode, no products ever used it as far as I know. I guess RPi could become the first and force it into relevancy.
What would be the advantage of hdmi over usbc as opposed to dp alt mode? Why pushing a dead horse?
There are adapters for everything, and micro hdmi is just a crappy connector
does the sub c power port allow OTG/Gadget mode? It should be possible to use it as a HID gadget if it does
You know what else has a 15-16″ screen, doesn’t take space on the desk, idles at 5W and consumes up to 20, but you can install literally anything you want and it plays YouTube at 4k
Yeah, a n100-n150 laptop
This whole raspberry desktop trend is really retarded
Hihi
Yes. Although you won’t find a N100 16GB RAM laptop for 200 euro.
But a N100 16GB NUC + RGB keyboard: probably 125 – 140 euro. And that NUC has much more CPU power than a Raspi.
I do like the looks of the Raspi 500+, but no use case for it.
Well maybe not 200 but very close:
brack.ch/it-multimedia/notebook?sortProducts=priceasc
digitec.ch/de/s1/product/acer-aspire-go-14-14-intel-n150-8-gb-128-gb-ch-notebook-59931352
Don’t forget those come with a screen and a power supply, maybe add 3 bucks for an Arduino to have gpio
Some returns are available cheaper, and often asking the IT department for retired equipment also works, especially now with lots of non win11 compatible devices…
Generally price is unrealistic. $220 compared to windows n100 or n150. Sorry rPi you have nothing to propose. Within this price range you can buy ryzen 6600H PC.
Not as much as you think. They are within 5% on single threaded score, which most CPU workloads operate at, and within 20% on multi threaded.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/5157vs6672/Intel-N100-vs-Broadcom-BCM2712
The true advantage of the N100 over the Pi is breadth of OS and software support. x86 is still king in this area and will be for a long time. ARM desktop use is a fraction of a percent of x86 despite the popularity of the Pi and similar SBCs. I’ll be happy to see the day that ARM catches up with x86 for real-world general use devices, but we aren’t there yet.