Some thoughts about the size of a Raspberry Pi
#RaspberryPi
There’s a bit of nuance I don’t see being talked about their size and portability that I noticed after going back to mine after a while - they may seem larger due to accessories/cables, but they still take less space than a laptop PC.
Having used mainly laptops so far, I’ve yet to see any that doesn’t take at least 50% more space than a Raspberry Pi in the same conditions, and laptops afaik are historically the portability option for a desktop-oriented experience.
Also, yet to test with a portable screen, so I don’t depend on available TVs, but from what I checked on them, they barely seem to affect the space taken either.
Worst part is organizing the cables, specially when using the device, the difficulty to do so causing visual polution which gives the impression of a bigger setup.
But putting tidely in a backpack/bag/etc., and if managing to figure out how to organize the setup when having to use it, makes it still much better for portability than a laptop imo.
And sharing this because, if my impression is correct and there isn’t much talk on this part indeed, some people interested because of the size/portability may get disheartened when they see the cables/accessories situation. But it’s not bad, but is perfectly manageable and also, repeating myself, possibly the best option around.
You need the Pi, a portable monitor, a keyboard, a battery, all of the cables to connect everything and a case so you can pack it around without breaking it. That ends up being something about the size of a laptop and not one of the really thin ones either.
Would that be so? Not necessarily disagreeing, just trying to visualise how big it’d get.
Going by the pieces you listed…
Chargers for laptops alone are massive from my experience. The battery for the RPi, if it’s one of those portable phone chargers, would be about the size of a RPi 5 with that white and red case. The default RPi 5 charger is pretty small. Keyboard might indeed bloat the volume, though afaik there’s cell keyboards which should be super thin. External HDs the RPi may generally need one more than a laptop if you flash your system onto that, but the more you have around, the smaller the difference becomes. The portable monitor, if it’s one of those small ones I see announced for the RPi, don’t seem overly big, about the size of the RPi with a case and the battery.
Considering just what isn’t useful for both types of devices, feels like the RPi bundle is about the volume (size) of a Nitro 5 laptop, but without the charger.
And wrapping may need some improvisation, which may add some volume indeed, but notebook bags aren’t small either, even if proportionally smaller.
Am I going about right in this visualization attempt?
If you use a 7 inch display it could be a lot more compact. I was thinking of a portable monitor in the 12-15 inch range.
Laptop chargers have gotten a lot smaller. A compact laptop may only need a 45 watt charger and the GaN chargers in that power range aren’t much bigger than a phone charger now.
I bought the official Raspberry portable monitor. https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-monitor/ Yes there are cheaper but it wasn’t that much more expensive and I figure I’m giving to their foundation in the process. I put two L brackets on the vesa mount that come out front so my 400 sits on them. Then a really short usb C cable to power the monitor and HDMI to FRP and a short frp cable.
Interesting!
About the monitor, didn’t know there were as big portable ones. And about the chargers, I guess I’ve been unlucky with the ones I’d seen. "<.<
Laptops use USB PD chargers now. Those are small.
Otoh I’m annoyed that the Pi 400 and 500 have no built in pointing device like laptops have. They want you to use a mouse instead, which means a desk and additional desk space for the mouse to move in.
The 400 is also uselessly slow at running a web browser. The 500 has its own issues.
A faster distro and browser the 400 is usable, i use one.
A lot of maker stuff is built iteratively around what’s popular at one point in time, and then the standards outlive that. Arduinos were originally designed to fit into candy tins, I think the Raspberry Pis are a similar story.
My understanding is that they’re only really powerful enough now for people to consider putting a full size screen and keyboard permanently and using them as PCs, while they are still more like embedded machines. The point is to stick one to the back of a TV, or have it in a cabinet with a tiny display, or to have two of them sitting on top of your router doing some light server work. Frankly the Pi 4 can use lower power and cooling and the Pi Zeros exist and for most of these they’re better suited. Hell, people use Pis where you can get away with a microcontroller. They’re teeny tiny general purpose computers and that’s kind of a middle ground between the different ways most people use computers.
Plugging in a bunch of stuff on a desk is the quirky option, and frankly isn’t really any worse than a standard desktop computer. I was looking into having one as a sort of backup desktop machine and I actually preferred the option of using a Compute Module and the expanded IO case (better cooling and can use standard cables) or one of those AliExpress pretend PC cases (looks fun to assemble). My homelabby projects are all on hold indefinitely until the war chills out though, we’re pretty badly affected and it’s not the time to overpay on AI-scalped tech either.
As a laptop replacement I don’t know. A used Thinkpad is still more expensive yes, but also way more convenient and suited to the job, and will be better at most tasks you want a laptop for. Or that new cheap Mac people are raving about, Apple sucks but that’s a good option for many people.
