Raspberry Pi 400: This $100 keyboard is a full-blown computer

Looking at the hardware, the Raspberry Pi 400 is effectively an optimized Raspberry Pi 4 Model B built into a keyboard. Students and tinkerers get a PC with a small footprint, a low price, and great possibilities.

It’s based on the Broadcom SoC BCM2711, a system-on-a-chip manufactured in 16nm with four Cortex-A72 cores and an increased clock rate compared to the Raspberry Pi 4B. It also offers 4GB LPDDR4-3200 and a VideoCore VI GPU, which is capable of OpenGL-ES 3.0 and the playback of video material in 4K/UHD with the help of H.265.

The technical specifications (PDF) are as follows:

CPU: Broadcom BCM2711

4 x ARM Cortex-A72 with 1,800MHz

GPU: Broadcom VideoCore VI

64 shader units with 500MHz

RAM: 4GB LPDDR4-3200

HDD: 16GB microSD

The fixed storage space, which is realized with a 16GB microSD memory card in the scope of delivery, can be expanded on request. Connectivity is guaranteed by Wi-Fi 5 (IEEE 802.11ac), Bluetooth 5.0, and Gigabit LAN. This hardware is customized for small office and internet PCs that require comparatively little energy.

View Raspberry Pi 400 at Amazon

Raspberry Pi Foundation

Fully integrated into the particularly flat white keyboard, the Raspberry Pi 400 looks very discreet and ensures a tidy workstation, even in the tightest of spaces. In addition to students and users with less demanding applications, the all-in-one keyboard computer is also aimed at teachers and developers, according to the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

The Raspberry Pi 400 also focuses on minimizing the ecological footprint. The mini system consumes no more than 3 watts in idle mode and a maximum of 6 watts under full load. Even efficient PCs usually consume at least 40 to 60 watts in these scenarios.

But that’s not all that the space-saving all-in-one keyboard computer has to offer. It comes to the user completely ready to use.

All-in-one starter kit

Measuring just 11.25 × 0.9 × 4.8 inches (W × H × D) and weighing just 13.9 ounces, the Raspberry Pi 400 is supplied as a desktop kit with a mouse, USB connection cable, and operating system in addition to the keyboard in which it is integrated. This means that the system is ready for use immediately after the first startup and you can use it straight away for productive applications.

View Raspberry Pi 400 Kit at Amazon

The development team of the British Raspberry Pi Foundation primarily envisages the following areas of application for the Raspberry Pi 400:

Development

Internet surfing

Sending emails

Spreadsheet calculation

Word processing

Playing games

Thanks to the open-source platform based on the free Linux operating system kernel, there are basically no limits for the user, as the project makes clear in a video.

To get started right away, the Raspberry Pi 400 is supplied with a microSD memory card that comes pre-installed with the required Raspberry Pi OS operating system, which is customized for single-board computers.

Raspberry Pi OS

The free Linux distribution Raspberry Pi OS for mini PCs, makers, and single-board computers, such as the Raspberry Pi 4 and the Raspberry Pi 400, is based on the stable Debian 12 (“Bookworm”) and offers an intuitive user interface with the in-house PIXEL desktop, which in turn is based on the lightweight LXDE, which is based on the older Windows versions in a user-friendly way.

Based on a total of more than 40,000 program packages from Debian, you can install countless applications, games, developer tools, and learning materials on request and make them available on the Raspberry Pi 400. Due to the open Linux platform and the broad driver support, however, experienced users can choose numerous distributions as an alternative.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation offers free courses and learning content for the single-board computer so that users can quickly gain the best possible access to the Raspberry Pi 400 and its possibilities.

Ubuntu MATE

Ubuntu MATE 22.04, one of the seven official derivatives (“flavors”) of Ubuntu, is now officially available optimized for the Raspberry Pi. The operating system from the British Linux distributor Canonical is based on the MATE Desktop Environment, which originally resulted from a fork of Gnome 2.x, and its own kernel.

Canonical

Ubuntu MATE 22.04 for the Raspberry Pi 4 and Raspberry Pi 400 is ideal for users who want a significantly more modern operating system and primarily want to work with multimedia and developer tools.

Installing Ubuntu MATE 22.04 on the Raspberry Pi 400 is not rocket science and is described in the official Installation Guide.

This article was translated from German to English and originally appeared on pcwelt.de.

Desktop PCs