Rpi 500 Arrives with Mechanical Switches, Rgb Led Backlit Keys

The mods know, the auto title fixer removed the +, but this is also a day old post that got voted into the second chance pool (probably mistakenly since it's just a sales page)

Eh, there's mechanical keyboards and then there's mechanical keyboards. Boards with a basic plastic construction similar to the Pi500+ can be had for much cheaper, while for the cost of a Pi500+ you can get a super fancy CNC machined aluminium brick of a keyboard.

When you consider you get an ARM linux machine with a SSD (compared to an SD card), it's mind bogglingly good!

Thanks! Macro-expanded:

Raspberry Pi 500+ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45370304 - 1 day ago, 285 comments

The Pi 5 does support OTG mode, e.g. see:

https://www.foxipex.com/2024/10/26/virtual-keyboard-over-usb...

Good for young kids to learn computer, programming, etc. It comes with free Mathematica.

There are also limited game option, which is good from parent's perspective.

And also, for this price you can get a really nice N100/N150 laptop with a full HD IPS screen. That'll be faster too.

I think the raspberry pi is still a nice niche for when you need the combination of GPIO and fast processing (like a small AI model or something). But it really is a very small niche. If you just need GPIO but don't need to do much with the data, just pump it to WiFi or something? Just get an ESP32 (or pico pi though I prefer the ESP). Need a small light energy server? Just get a N100 nuc style box with 16/256 for 90€. Need to actually work on it? Get a Chuwi laptop for 180€

The pi used to be great to embed into electronics projects. But it's no longer cheap and it's overpowered, microcontrollers have WiFi now and cost a few bucks. And usually a full Linux environment isn't needed.

It also used to be a great little cheap server but Intel now makes cheaper and faster options and on AliExpress you can buy them with more memory and storage and PSU and case included for a price the pi goes for without those things.

It was nice while it lasted. But during the long shortage during the pandemic (and them prioritising OEMs so we were stuck with scalper prices) most of us makers and techies have moved on to better options.

If this existed in my childhood I would've been a very happy child. The big problem I always had was being interested in computers but not being able to access one easily.

I like that it is a well maintained unix like environment with full on vendor support. Since the pi 5 performance has been good enough for everything I do and the 400 is still my go-to when I need an extra machine for something. Given that, there is almost no way I will buy one but if I didn't already have a pi 5 workstation I probably would.

> I wish I could just buy as a keyboard

It seems that they are Gateron KS-33 Blue low profile switches[1][2], so you can look for keyboards that come with those preinstalled.

[1] https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-500-plus/

[2] https://core-electronics.com.au/guides/raspberry-pi-500-plus...

Too bad the keyswitches aren't swappable. That price point is veering into enthusiast territory and seems odd not to allow customization. I'll stay away as I prefer linear switches.

You might check out the Keychron K3. The 500+ looks (at least, in the photos) so much like my K3 that I thought at first it was a collab with Keychron.

If you're looking at configurations that look very different aesthetically, keep in mind you can replace with aftermarket keycaps.

There are several variants of the "K3"; some configurations will have swappable switches, others not. Beware.

If you want software hackability as well, you'd probably go with one of the QMK/VIA versions.