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Raspberry Pi's Upgraded Keyboard Computer Gets RGB Lighting, Mechanical Switches and SSD Storage (theverge.com) 51

Posted by msmash from the RGB-all-the-things dept.
Raspberry Pi has launched the Raspberry Pi 500 Plus for $200, more than doubling the $90 price of the standard model. The keyboard computer now includes an M.2 2280 SSD socket alongside the SD card slot, 256GB of storage and 16GB of LPDDR4x-4267 RAM instead of 8GB. The company added Gateron KS-33 Blue mechanical switches, replaceable low-profile keycaps finished to allow RGB lighting to shine through and an RP2040 microcontroller running QMK firmware.

The 500 Plus retains Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth, gigabit Ethernet, two micro HDMI ports, three USB-A ports, and USB-C power from the base model. A $220 Desktop Kit bundles necessary cables, power supply, and mouse.

Raspberry Pi's Upgraded Keyboard Computer Gets RGB Lighting, Mechanical Switches and SSD Storage More | Reply

Raspberry Pi's Upgraded Keyboard Computer Gets RGB Lighting, Mechanical Switches and SSD Storage

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  • Pretty cool, but I can't believe it only supports 802.11ac in this day and age.

    • Pretty cool, but I can't believe it only supports 802.11ac in this day and age.

      Par for the course these days, sadly.

      20 years later, and your “modern” HDTV is still waiting for that broadcast signal to justify the upgrade.

    • I'm not sure why you would expect it to do anything faster. This is a Pi, the underlying A76 CPU and associated hardware architecture has trouble maxing out the ethernet gigabit connection, why would you need an even faster WiFi link? It adds expense with no purpose (though given this thing has RGB...)

    • Pi 3-5 should have all supported Wake on LAN and 4-5 Wake on Wireless, but they're all mediocre products sold on brand recognition at the end of the day.

      Once the higher end RPis broke $80 (higher RAM 4s, but I recall 3Bs having odd price spikes too) and the NUC-like x86-64 PCs exploded with fully functional (SSD/NVMe + RAM) units <$250, the value balance for Pi was over -- and this was before 2020 issues. The Pi still needed $30-120 in parts to make "complete" whereas the PCs just needed $10-20 in an Ard

  • Is $200 a bargain? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by walterbyrd ( 182728 )

    About two years back I bought a new laptop at Micro-Center for $60. Unlike a raspberry pi, the laptop came with: power supply, battery, screen, keyboard, pointer device, case, memory, storage, and OS (Windows 10) installed.

    If you don't mind used, you can probably find a desktop, or laptop, on craigslist for nothing, or next to nothing.

    • Hardly. You can buy a used Wyse (Dell) 5070 thin client. It has a quad core cpu, 8gb ram and 64gb of ssd. The integrated Intel gpu will play 4k hevc encoded video without breaking a sweat. They sell for $40 all day long on ebay. Mine is running Fedora because it seems to play well with the free streaming sites like Tubi.

    • About two years back I bought a new laptop at Micro-Center for $60. Unlike a raspberry pi, the laptop came with: power supply, battery, screen, keyboard, pointer device, case, memory, storage, and OS (Windows 10) installed.

      If you don't mind used, you can probably find a desktop, or laptop, on craigslist for nothing, or next to nothing.

      A Windows licensed device for $60? Wonder how many hours in Hades that’ll run ya.

      (Don’t worry kids. They take SinMo. Buy Now, Burn Later.)

  • They had me until "long travel times" for the keys.

  • Video (Score:5, Informative)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Friday September 26, 2025 @11:43AM (#65685042)

    Jeff Geerling just dropped a video reviewing this a few days ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • Who wants this? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 ) on Friday September 26, 2025 @11:44AM (#65685044)

    At $90, it's kind of fun. At 200? Why even bother? The thin client corporate types are going to want more robust enterprise features and not care about the ssd slot. The home users are going to pick up a used laptop with more power for the same money. This is just too niche.

    • Re:Who wants this? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ctilsie242 ( 4841247 ) on Friday September 26, 2025 @11:59AM (#65685082)

      At $200, I can buy a Chinese mini PC that has Windows 11, some storage, and 16 GB of RAM. Not great, but for a desktop PC with questionable drivers and such, something good enough for light gaming.

      I can see one place for this specific machine... an offline computer. Something one uses for top tier signing/decrypting of GPG messages, or signing code. Plug it into an older monitor, and it is quite useful for this task, as after it us used, just unplug the "keyboard", and stick that in the strongbox. In fact, I keep an offline Raspberry Pi for just an item, especially storing offline root CA keys, that really need to go into a HSM, or generating a GPG key I use for Git... and copying that key into a YubiKey. This way, if I lose the YubiKey, I still can rebuild my private key offline.

      • I was going to say the same thing. Beelink for $220 CDN. But then RPis have always been in that 'hobbyist niche' space. People buy them for a fun thing to experiment with, not for performance.
      • Some people would rather have Linux than Windows 11. And some people would rather not pay for a Windows 11 license they aren't going to use.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Some people would rather have Linux than Windows 11. And some people would rather not pay for a Windows 11 license they aren't going to use.

          You can buy mini PCs with Linux. They're usually a bit cheaper. I bought an Ubuntu mini PC that was about $50 cheaper than the Windows version of the same unit - the only difference was Windows.

          Ironically, the box said it was Ubuntu, but inside it came with Windows activated. So I guess I saved $50.

          Anyhow, the purpose of it is to tinker. All it is is a RPi inside a keyb

      • Hell, if you shop off-lease and refurbs, you can get a namebrand mini PC from HP or Dell within this price bracket, with gobs more power. Might have the same "old WiFi" problem, but at least on those it would be a replacable module.

        • Yes. $200 buys you a mini dell with an i3-12100T, 16gb, 256gb, in it. That CPU makes the raspi5 look like a joke. Throw $10 more dollars in and you've got a respectable mech keyboad too.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tarlus ( 1000874 )

      Yeah, I'm not sure who exactly this is for. The whole appeal of their products is for people to tinker, learn, or build in a microcontroller for some very bespoke use cases. Trying to infiltrate the "daily driver" market is off-brand for them.

    • It's an all-in-one computer. That's kind of a novelty to a certain class of retro computer hobbyist. It let's you reproduce some of the feel of old computers when running emulators.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )
      Well, you're in luck. The Pi 500 (not plus) lacks the mechanical keyboard and RGB, depopulates the M.2 slot, and retails for about $100.

      Just because you don't find it compelling doesn't mean it's useless. You may as well bitch about the existence of Rolex and say "why bother, I can get a Timex for $25."

    • You use a Pi 5 if you want GPIO and community support. Its appropriateness in other areas has rapidly shrunk, despite the price of the Pi being relatively stable (the 2GB model Pi 5 is like $10 more than the 2GB Pi 2).

      The Pi 5 is too expensive to be used as a simple SFF PC. x86 gives you way better bang for buck but will use more power.

      The Pi 5 also has a huge amount of competition as a GPIO-ready IoT dev board -- there are faster options, there are cheaper options, there are lower power options. So even in

    • Everyone who raves about Raspberry Pi has spare keyboards, mice and screens - they don't count that in the cost. They always seem to have loads and loads of boards for some reason, just sat in drawers
      • I prefer an Arduino collection!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dskoll ( 99328 )

        I own 8 Raspberry Pi boards and one ASUS tinkerboard. All of them are in use 24x7 except for one of the Raspberry Pi 4s that I keep as a spare for my most critical Raspberry Pi 4.

        However, I don't use them as my workstation to browse the web, etc. They do server-stuff or embedded stuff (a Pi Zero runs an LED matrix in my room, for example, giving me a bedroom clock that's always sync'd to time servers and automatically adjusts for DST.)

        About the most inappropriate use for a Raspberry Pi is as a daily d

  • ... the basic system board is available, that's all I need. I've got a pile of perfectly good USB keyboards that won't drain the systems battery with their LEDs. And I can always pop by Radio Shack for a project box to house it in.

    • And I can always pop by Radio Shack for a project box to house it in.

      Sounds like a bold prediction to make in 2025.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Point taken. How about Fry's Electronics?

        • from all "the rise and fall of Fry's" videos ive seen in my yt reccommends i think your not doing much better there i happen to live near a micro center that opened last year; they carry pi's and the like; but i would rather it was a music gear store... but then 90% of those only have guitars and the most pedestrian keyboards

  • Raspberry Pi Foundation (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Friday September 26, 2025 @12:09PM (#65685108)

    Greed took over and they stopped caring about their original mission which was to make computing affordable to people who have limited finances.
    They started going after profits, when you get money and success, you start craving more money because now you hang out with even richer people. You also feel entitled, I mean if you sell millions of a certain product and get invited to various places to give talks, you start thinking "due to low profit margins, my net worth is only $10 million I should be $100 million."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by necro81 ( 917438 )
      I'm not sure what you're griping about. It's not like they have introduced this up-spec toy and discontinued their less expensive offerings. The Pi 500 (not plus), missing the mechanical RGB keyboard, retails for $100. That's too expensive for a light-duty desktop replacement?

      You can still get a 3B+ for connectors from for that price, let alone the board populated with processor and other components.

      A low-spec Model 4 or 5 retails for $50-60.

      If that's too rich for you, you can get a Pi Zero, w

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by necro81 ( 917438 )
        Dang, some of my formatting got eaten, and I didn't notice in Preview. I meant to say: You can still get a 3B+ for $40. It's only a few dollars more than the original Model B ($35) that came out in 2012! Adjusted for inflation, that $35 would be worth about $50 today - you are getting more Pi for less money. Hell, I can barely source connectors from Digikey for that price, let alone the board populated with processor and other components.
    • I agree. Raspberry Pi has lost its cool, but the many brownoser/influencers would say otherwise.

    • they stopped caring about their original mission which was to make computing affordable to people who have limited finances.

      That was not their mission. Ever. And in their current line up of products start at $4.70 for the Pico, and $27 for the 3A which are both currently being manufactured and are available.

      Just because they are also providing something higher end doesn't mean any mission (even the one you made up) has been abandoned. And both of those products I listed above meet their actual original mission of allowing all young people to develop knowledge and skills related to computers and digital technologies.

      Don't gasligh

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Ah yes, the maker of the $15 pi zero 2, a 1 GHz quad core Linux computer has clearly given up making computing affordable.

  • Thunderbolt would be nicer, but that would make it more expensive. Is there an add-on card for that? Other than running a dedicated kiosk app on it and surfing the web, what are people going to do with these? It would be great for running SSH shells connected to all your servers.
    • the youtuber ran an egpu on it (though oddly didnt show many games); so you could maybe get usb4 for it with some convoluted mess
  • It would be cool if it could double up as a keyboard for your laptop, so you can carry it around with your laptop, but use it on it's own when you need to travel light.

  • The company added Gateron KS-33 Blue mechanical switches

    When I was choosing keyswitches to upgrade my Redragon keyboards (which came with Redragon switches which are OK but meh) I bought a switch tester assortment from aliexpress. It included Gateron, Kailh, Outemu, and Cherry switches. Add in the Redragon switches I had already, and the Ajazz switches I've had since, and Outemu is by far the best of these aside from Cherry switches, which are only slightly better. Outemu has much better tolerances than the other knockoffs, that is to say they are much less slop

  • At this price there is no point to RPI, as N100 is better in every conceivable way. The only missing hardware is GPIO, but the USB to GPIO are dirt cheap and you are better off using them anyways for electrical isolation.

  • It doesn't look like it has an audio jack. Pass.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by beep999 ( 229889 )
      You can get audio via HDMI or through one of the USB ports (with a dongle if you want 3.5mm analog)
      • The removal of the audio jack was a questionable decision--with likely an even more questionable justification.

  • Form over function.

    Joke company.

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