Raspberry Pi 400

Taking a leaf out of 80s computer design, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has put its latest Raspberry Pi inside a keyboard. Les Pounder checks it out.

- Les Pounder

The Raspberry Pi Model B has had the same board layout since the Raspberry Pi B+ arrived in 2014. Sure, the Raspberry Pi 4 swapped the Ethernet and USB ports around, but the basic design has persisted. So when we received a parcel from Raspberry Pi Trading and opened the box to find a white keyboard, we were somewhat puzzled as to the contents. But not for long. Within this compact and well-designed keyboard is a Raspberry Pi 400, a variant of the Raspberry Pi 4 4GB that’s been designed specifically to make the most of its new surroundings.

The device is being sold as a single unit for £70 or as a £100 kit with a mouse, power supply, cables, micro SD card, and a copy of The Official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide. Either way, the Raspberry Pi 400 could be the ideal way to introduce the Raspberry Pi to your home.

Meet the Rasptrum

If you’re of a certain age then you’ll remember a time where computers were hidden underneath a keyboard. The Raspberry Pi 400 brings that aesthetic back and it works rather well. The compact keyboard measures just over 11x4.6x0.7 inches (283x120x20mm) and is fairly comfortable to type on. We won’t be writing our next thesis with this keyboard, but it’s fine for daily use.

At the rear of the keyboard are all of the ports, the largest of which is a 40-pin header for the GPIO. Moving along we find a micro SD card slot, two micro HDMI ports that offer 4K output, two USB 3.0 ports, and a single USB 2.0 port, with a Gigabit Ethernet port rounding off the Raspberry Pi 400’s range of inputs.