Raspberry Pi 400 Desktop Computer Kit (UK layout)

Product Information

Though I missed out on a university education and am not a computer or software engineer I’ve had an interest in computing for a long long time (anyone remember Byte magazine and Jerry Pournelle’s Chaos Manor?).

The Raspberry Pi 400 offers a range of different ports that will cater to your needs. From LAN to USB 3.0, 40 pin GPIO to MicroHDMI, whatever you need to plug in, the Pi 400 has it! Getting Started with your Raspberry Pi 400 The familiar 40-pin GPIO pins are located at the rear of the keyboard for wiring up electronics projects, alongside two USB 3.0 ports and a USB 2.0 port. There's even an on/off power option via the F10 key (for full power disconnection, grab a USB-C on/off switch cable). You get Gigabit Ethernet, USB and two USB3 ports, two mini HDMI outputs and a microSD card slot. There’s USB-C for delivering power, too. Both HDMI ports support 4K displays, although you can only run a single display at 60Hz; if you connect two displays, they both run at 30Hz. As with the Pi 4, the 400 has the same upgraded networking, with 802.11ac, proper Gigabit Ethernet and Bluetooth 5. The Raspberry Pi 400 is powered by a USB-C connector and comes with various inputs and outputs such as Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 as well as 2 x micro HDMI ports for use with any display. It is also equipped with 2.4GHz and 5.0 GHz wireless LAN for those on the move. There are endless possibilities with this amazing computer that you can take anywhere.My collection of Pis are already falling into dis-use and gathering cobwebs but I recently got a gift of the Pi 400 so and am looking forward to installing the new optimised Ubuntu server o/s and connecting it to 16Tb of external disk drives. This will replace a proprietary nas that failed miserably and tied me to a limited eco system, with Ubuntu installed the world is my oyster again. Raspberry Pi 4, which we launched in June last year, is roughly forty times as powerful as the original Raspberry Pi, and offers an experience that is indistinguishable from a legacy PC for the majority of users. Particularly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen a rapid increase in the use of Raspberry Pi 4 for home working and studying. The magic of having these little things available is hard to explain and not for everyone but for me they help to satisfy an endless curiosity for how things work and a deep disdain for all things proprietory and sealed off from the user/owner. Somewhere along the line my interest in Pis and all things computing has seeped into my sons life and he too is now an avid Pi/Linux user…. so my work here is done!

Previously, if you wanted to make your Raspberry Pi look neat and make it that bit more robust, you’d need to buy a case for the board, then hook up your own keyboard, mouse and displays. With the Pi 400, you now get everything you need in an all-in-one computer. You do miss out on a few things, including the camera and display connectors. It’s a slight shame, as it means you can’t use the 400 for developing projects that use either accessory, moving them to a regular Pi when you’re done. The bigger loss is that there’s no 3.5mm audio output for hooking up external speakers or a pair of headphones. We keep saying it… because it’s amazing. Raspberry Pi 400 is a fully integrated personal computer inside a keyboard – just plug in and play! It also means you don’t have to waste any space with a clunky desktop PC. Revolutionary Raspberry PiAs mentioned before, this product comes equipped with a Raspberry Pi development board already integrated within, so you know you’re getting the best. Over 14 million Raspberry Pi computers have been sold worldwide that have transformed the single-board computing world. Helping people of all ages and knowledge levels explore the world of programming and computing. Go Wireless Having the GPIO so accessible means that this computer still fulfils its goal of letting people easily develop their own electronics projects. The 400, as the Pi 4 before it, is a proper computer. If you want to browse the web, write documents or stream some video, this computer can handle it all. Really, this computer is fast enough for most jobs. To an extent, it makes it easier to develop on this device, too, as it’s fast enough to keep up with what you want to do, with no annoying lag. Should I buy the Raspberry Pi 400? The Raspberry Pi 400 kit is available in a number of different regional variants (select above). You can also buy the standalone unit on its own without the accessories. The Raspberry Pi 400 uses a USB-C power meaning that you'll need a new USB-C power supply that can supply 5V at 3A.

Once you’ve got a microSD card inserted and filled with a compatible OS, and have hooked the Pi 400 up to a monitor, you can plug in the USB-C power cable and you’re ready to go. Having everything built into the keyboard makes this the easiest Pi to use yet: you can set it on a desk, or even plonk it on your lap and sit in front of a TV. Why did you opt out of using the compute module for this? Wasn’t it specific the purpose of the compute module, to facilitate designs like this, where the complex part could be replaced by swapping it out or just ease the design? I’m citing you below. I would like to be really impressed by this product, as i were until i saw it’s custom board. As well as our UK and US English keyboard variants, Raspberry Pi 400 is available in Spanish, French, German, and Italian variants, with more to come. Don’t be deceived by the size of Raspberry Pi 400, this computer delivers outstanding development tools and performance, the world of programming has never been so easy-to-use! With only one key component in the board itself, all you have to do is plug and play any peripherals you desire.

The table below shows the keyboard layout and power supply included in each regional variant of the kit: With an even faster 1.8GHz 64-bit quad-core CPU (thanks to the substantial heatsink inside), coupled with the 4GB of RAM give performance comparable to entry-level x86 desktop PCs. You'll see significantly faster boot speeds, and much better performance for CPU-heavy tasks like emulation and media centre usage; much snappier all round!