The most veterans of the place will remember the microcomputers of the 1980s, which had the particularity of having the equipment inside the keyboard and were connected to the television. Who doesn’t remember systems like the Spectrum, the Commodore 64 or even the mighty Atari STFM or the Amiga 500?
Well, the people of Raspberry have developed a variant of their Raspberry Pi 4, but this time integrated into a keyboard, the Raspberry Pi 400, which is sold as a full computer at the same price as what a video game costs on PlayStation or an Xbox.
Raspberry Pi 400, an all-in-one integrated Pi 4
The first thing that stands out and is quite obvious is that All of the circuitry of the Raspberry Pi has been integrated into a keyboard, so it was created for immediate use just out of the box.
Its main processor is the same as that of the Pi 4, but with a clock speed of 1.8 GHz, so I should run the software for this a bit faster, but if you consider this 4GB they fail to forget it because it comes with this memory configuration.
The tradeoff is that it has a series of cuts compared to the Raspberry Pi 4, especially in ports. For example, it lacks analog inputs and outputs for audio and video, as well as interfaces to connect an external LCD panel or camera. However, they kept the GPIO port, in case you want to make your own accessories and connect them to the Pi 400.
A complete computer for 70 $
The fact that the Raspberry Pi 400 presents itself as a compact system, in the form of a keyboard keyboard that can be connected directly to a monitor, makes it more attractive to the ordinary user who wants to be able to use the product right out of the box.
But what about the software? Well from the start you will not be able to run Windows , and the system comes with a MicroSD seerie with Raspberry Pi OS installedHave no fear, this is nothing more than an optimized Debian GNU / Linux distribution.
This is where we enter the negative part, it’s true that having a PC for 70 $ supposes a series of cost sacrifices, but the fact that storage on a MicroSD card is a huge bottleneck in terms of performance and it would have been preferable if they had included NAND Flash memory, especially when you already have smartphones that integrate NAND Flash memory as standard for the same price.
Keep in mind that it is not pleasant to have to wait indefinitely for the system to boot due to the slow storage format which is its main Achilles heel of this system.
Designed to experience and learn
Is it worth having a Raspberry Pi 400? The truth is, yes, but if you want a series of clear reasons, we’ll give them to you:
- The best way to learn things is to break them and experience them, and if you want to learn some computer related topics but are afraid of breaking your PC, the Raspberry Pi 400 is a great option for experimenting.
- It can serve as an emergency computer, when your PC is turned off for a while.
- It’s a good option for telecommuting if you don’t have a PC at home and need to work. It’s not as powerful as a PC, but for office tasks it’s good enough.
- In case you are looking for a platform to play retro games, this is a great option, not only because of the number of emulators for the Raspberry Pi, but because the built-in keyboard will also help you to enjoy it better. of these classics of microcomputing. how to recall its use as is or as approximate as possible.
They are not the only ones, in any case do not wait more than that, a platform to experiment and learn and for 70 $ it costs it’s excellent.
