The Raspberry Pi 400 is essentially a Raspberry Pi 4 built into a keyboard. This great concept takes me back to my first personal computer. Of course, in the spirit of Raspberry, the complete kit is quite reasonably priced at around $100 (RMB: 660.8). Here are the details provided by Pi Hut:

The Pi 400 packs all the powerful features of the Raspberry Pi 4 into a convenient, compact keyboard package that is the ultimate coding machine!

The keyboard is available as a kit, packing everything you need into one box (excluding the monitor), or it can be used standalone.

The Pi 400 does not compromise on performance; in fact, the CPU clock speed reaches up to 1.8GHz, thanks to the large metal heatsink inside the keyboard.

In addition to the CPU, the Pi 400 has the same excellent specifications and connectivity as the Raspberry Pi 4, with 4GB RAM, dual-band wireless networking, gigabit Ethernet, dual display output, and 4K video playback.

USB, power, video, Ethernet, and SD ports are located on the back of the keyboard, including the familiar 40-pin GPIO interface.

The Raspberry Pi 400 also has many different regional variants available (some international variants coming soon!).

Raspberry Pi 400 Review: Faster CPU, New Layout, Better Cooling

By: Les Pounder

Since the Raspberry Pi B+ was released in 2014, the circuit board layout of the Raspberry Pi Model B has remained the same. Ensuring that the Raspberry Pi 4 swapped the Ethernet and USB ports, but the same basic design has been retained. So, when we received a package from Raspberry Pi Trading and opened the box to look for the keyboard, we were a bit confused by what was inside. The Raspberry Pi 400 is this compact and well-designed keyboard, with the Raspberry Pi 4 4GB being a variant specifically designed for this purpose.

The Raspberry Pi 400 retails for $70, or as a complete $100 kit that includes a mouse, power supply, cables, micro SD card, and a copy of the Raspberry Pi beginner’s guide, making it an ideal way to introduce Raspberry Pi into your home.

If you are of a “certain age,” you might remember the era when computers were hidden under keyboards. Many classic computers from the early 1980s, from the Apple II to the Commodore 64, placed all their internal components in the same casing as the keyboard.

The Raspberry Pi 400 brings back this aesthetic and does it well. The compact keyboard measures just over 283 x 120 x 20 mm (11 x 4.6 x 0.7 inches), making it easy to type. We wouldn’t write a thesis on this keyboard, but it performs beyond its intended purpose.

The back of the Raspberry Pi 400 has all the ports, with the largest being the 40-pin GPIO header. Moving forward, we find a microSD card slot (see the best Raspberry Pi microSD cards), two micro HDMI ports that provide 4K output, two USB 3.0 ports, and a USB 2.0 port with a gigabit Ethernet port, completing the port selection.

Despite the change in form factor, it is still the Raspberry Pi 4 4GB, so it behaves exactly the same, with the only exception being that the Raspberry Pi 400 lacks the CSI and DSI connectors for the camera and official touchscreen. Without these connectors, those devices cannot be used. The loss of the touchscreen connector is not a big deal, but the loss of the camera connector is a bit significant.

The Raspberry Pi camera series is inexpensive and effective (see our best Raspberry Pi accessories list), providing interesting project streams. If you want to create a camera project, the Raspberry Pi 400 is not suitable for you.

Accessing GPIO is relatively easy. We can connect it to a breadboard using jumper wires, but without a breakout board like Pimoroni’s HAT Hacker HAT, we cannot connect HATs or pHATs. We understand why this must be the only way to break out GPIO, but this is a barrier for GPIO projects. Once connected to the breakout, we quickly installed the Explorer HAT Pro to test compatibility, and everything worked perfectly.

Like other Pis, the Raspberry Pi 400 is capable of booting from USB (see how to boot Raspberry Pi from USB), and we connected an NVMe drive containing Ubuntu 20.10 via USB3 and booted directly from it. No issues; our experience was very smooth.

Essentially, the Raspberry Pi 400 is a Raspberry Pi 4, which is known to get quite hot during use. Under normal use, the CPU stays cool enough to remain below the thermal throttle limit of 85 degrees Celsius, but enthusiasts looking to squeeze out extra performance from the CPU through overclocking often break through those limits.

The Pi 400’s storage speed is 1.8 GHz, which is 300 MHz higher than standard Raspberry Pi 4, so compared to our “control” Raspberry Pi 4’s 40 degrees Celsius, the idle temperature of the Pi 400 is a surprising 31 degrees Celsius.

In the Stressberry test, we saw the Pi 400 peak at 46 degrees Celsius, which is 20 degrees lower than a regular Raspberry Pi 4! We wanted to push the Raspberry Pi 400 a bit further, so we overclocked it to 2.1 GHz and repeated the test. The idle temperature remained at 32 degrees Celsius, with a peak of 54 degrees Celsius during Stressberry.

These temperatures are good, so can we push it further? We were able to break the Raspberry Pi 4’s record of 2.147 GHz and achieve a stable overclock of 2.2 GHz. Remember, there is no fan, but we still saw an idle temperature of 34 degrees Celsius and a Stressberry peak temperature of 57 degrees Celsius, all well below the 85-degree peak point.

But how does the Raspberry Pi 400 run at 1.8 GHz while staying so cool? We posed this question to Raspberry Pi Trading CEO Eben Upton. “We are able to run at higher voltages, which generates more heat, because we have a more complex cooling solution. So we decided to factory-certify the Pi 400 at a higher operating frequency. This is a unique feature of the Pi 400.”

With this news, we quickly opened up the Raspberry Pi 400 and first noticed a particularly large heatsink. The heatsink acts as a “shield” between the keyboard and the Pi 400 board, with indentations and thermal pads that make contact with the system-on-chip (SoC). This heatsink is excellent and is largely responsible for the high temperatures and overclocking capabilities of the Raspberry Pi 400.

We asked Eben Upton to explain why the Raspberry Pi 400 was created, and his response was, “This is the next step in our mission to provide a cost-effective, high-performance general-purpose PC for everyone who needs/wants one. In the past, this form factor was very popular in non-mobile computing, and we have gradually moved away from it, just as we moved away from programmable computers. So, just like the Raspberry Pi itself, this is a compelling product: the potential demand for this compact PC.

What does this mean for potential use cases?This is a learning Pi. Similar to home computers of the 1980s, this is a machine we can simply connect to a TV and power it on to start learning to code. The Raspberry Pi 400 can also serve as a basic desktop computer, capable of handling regular activities.

The Raspberry Pi 400 goes against the grain of conventional products, being a fully functional product. We get the same Raspberry Pi experience but with far fewer wires and setup. At $100 for the kit, the Raspberry Pi 400 is a great gift for some (especially kids) who are taking their first steps into the Pi world, priced lower than the official Raspberry Pi 4 starter kit ($115), which provides you with a Pi 4, a case, and an external keyboard. The standalone device retails for $70, just $15 more than the Raspberry Pi 4, but we get a keyboard and excellent CPU speed.

If money is no object and you are looking for a starter kit for kids or teenagers, the Elecrow CrowPi2 laptop (without Pi at $269, with Pi at $399, etc.) is also a good option, as it is not only a self-contained laptop, but it also has a ton of lights, motors, and sensors built in, along with tutorials to help you program it.

However, with the Raspberry Pi 400, you can always access any electronic devices you need and connect them with a breadboard and jumper cables. The awkward GPIO access and the lack of camera and display connectors are the only downsides of the Raspberry Pi 400. Overall, this is an amazing Raspberry Pi for platform newcomers.

Source: SWL Post/ tomshardware.com

Tags: Raspberry Pi, Review, Technology, Computing, Hardware