One of the selling points of the Raspberry Pi 5 (released in October 2023) is that it was fast enough and had enough memory to be a credible general-purpose desktop PC, if not an especially fast one. For Pi-as-desktop enthusiasts, the company has a couple of new pre-holiday announcements. The biggest is the Raspberry Pi 500, which fits the components of an 8GB Pi 5 into a small keyboard-shaped case for $90.
It’s a follow-up to the original Raspberry Pi 400, and like that system, it takes the components from the regular Pi 5 board and puts them on a different PCB with all of the ports positioned in a single row across the back of the device. It includes one USB 2.0 port, two USB 3.0 ports, a microSD slot, two micro HDMI ports, the 40-pin GPIO header, and a gigabit Ethernet port.
In addition to the standalone $90 system, the Pi 500 will also be sold as part of a Desktop Kit with a mouse, power supply, HDMI cable, and printed Beginner’s Guide booklet for $120.
