The Raspberry Pi Foundation released the hotly anticipated Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer in late 2023, but it has not spent the past year resting on its laurels. There have been new accessories and versions of the Pi 5 since then, and now you can get this micro-PC in a new form factor. The Raspberry Pi 500 is official, offering all the power of a Raspberry Pi 5 built into a computer keyboard.
The Raspberry Pi 500 is a follow-up to the Raspberry Pi 400, which was released in 2020 based on the Raspberry Pi 4 board. Because the Raspberry Pi has such a small footprint, it's possible to build a keyboard around it without making the device too heavy or bulky. The standard Raspberry Pi 5 is a full computer, but you have to add a few accessories to actually use it. The Raspberry Pi 500 is easier still, hiding the PCB inside the keyboard, which sports a full array of I/O. Just plug in your peripherals, and you're all set.
The core of the Raspberry Pi 500 is identical to the standalone Raspberry Pi 5, with a quad-core Arm processor and 8GB of RAM. That version of the Raspberry Pi is $80 on its own. The Raspberry Pi 500's internal PCB is built a little differently to place all the ports along the top edge of the keyboard. You get two micro-HDMI ports (with 4K support), three USB-A ports, a gigabit Ethernet port, and even the RaspPi's 40-pin expansion header is exposed. Unfortunately, there's still only one USB-C port for power.
The keyboard comes pre-loaded with a 32GB microSD (no SSD kit here) card with Raspberry Pi OS, which is based on Debian Linux. However, you can tinker with the software as much as you want because the Raspberry Pi 500 is still just a Raspberry Pi at heart.
Raspberry Pi desktop
Credit: Raspberry Pi
Currently, the foundation is only offering the Raspberry Pi 500 with US and UK layouts, but French, German, Italian, Japanese, Nordic, and Spanish versions are planned. Raspberry Pi also offers everything you need to make the Raspberry Pi 500 a real computer. The desktop kit includes a mouse, a power cable, and a micro-HDMI to HDMI cable. All you need to add to that is a monitor, but there's a Raspberry Pi option there as well.
The new Raspberry Pi Monitor (above) is also available, and it's perfectly suited to the Raspberry Pi 500. This 15.6-inch 1080p monitor has a handy cutout for routing cables from your keyboard computer. There are plenty of portable monitors out there, sometimes for less than the official monitor's $100 price tag. However, it certainly looks the part if you want to indulge your Raspberry Pi obsession.