Raspberry Pi simply dropped the brand new Raspberry Pi 500, which like its predecessor places the equally named SBC right into a keyboard. In an in depth overview and teardown video, [Jeff Geerling] goes over all the small print, and what there’s to love and never like about this new product.
Most of the adjustments relative to the RP400 are as anticipated, with the change to the identical BCM2712 SoC as on the Raspberry Pi 5, whereas doubling the RAM to eight GB and naturally you get the tender energy button. As [Jeff] discovers with the teardown, the odd factor is that the RP500 PCB has the footprints for an M.2 slot, as seen on the above picture, however not one of the parts are populated.
Naturally, [Jeff] ordered up some elements off Digikey to populate these footprints, however with out luck. After asking Raspberry Pi, he was instructed that these footprints in addition to these for a PoE characteristic are there for ‘flexibility to reuse the PCB in different contexts’. Sadly, plainly these unpopulated elements of the board must stay simply that, with no M.2 NVMe slot choice built-in. With the value bump to $90 from the RP400’s $70 you’ll should do your personal math on whether or not the higher SoC and extra RAM is price it.
In addition to the RP500 itself, [Jeff] additionally appears to be like on the newly launched Raspberry Pi Monitor, a 15.6″ IPS show for $100. This unit comes with built-in audio system and VESA mount, however as [Jeff] notes in his overview, utilizing this VESA mount additionally signifies that you’re blocking all of the ports, so you need to take the monitor off mentioned VESA mount if you wish to plug in or out any cables.
