This is what we can expect from the future keyboard-miniPC

The Raspberry Pi 5 They have been with us for a year now, and in these twelve months we have seen how this amazing miniPC continues to offer a fantastic alternative for all types of computing projects – including those of artificial vision— or electronics. Things are getting interesting, because there is a possible new variant in sight.

Keyboard-miniPC. In 2020 The Raspberry Foundation amazed us with the Raspberry 400. It was a great way to give new possibilities to Raspberry Pi 4 users, which were “camouflaged” inside a nice keyboard that reminded us of the old ZX Spectrum or Commodore 64.

Raspberry Pi 500 in sight. Now signs are beginning to appear that the same will happen with the Raspberry Pi 5. On Hackday reveal how the latest Raspberry Pi code revisions include references to an “rpi-500”. That seems to clearly indicate that this device is in development and could appear imminently.

The Raspberry 400 has no competition. It’s curious, because while the “raw” format of the Raspberry Pi—the board with its connectors, nothing more—has ended up having a large number of competitors, the same has not happened with the keyboard-miniPC format of the Rpi 400. It is precisely for this reason that The Raspberry Pi Foundation has here a new opportunity to turn this model into an especially popular one.

What can we expect. If we follow the line of what was done with the Raspberry Pi 400, in the hypothetical Raspberry Pi 500 we should find at least 4 GB of RAM, two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, two micro HDMI outputs, a microSD slot , Gigabit Ethernet, the GPIO connector and a USB-C connector for power.

Changes. The Raspberry Pi 400 used passive cooling with a large aluminum plate to dissipate the heat generated by its components. A fan may be required on the Raspberry Pi 5. It is also possible that due to these cooling needs the design of the keyboard that houses the plate is quite different.

Wish list. Considering that the Raspberry Pi 5 is more powerful and versatile in its input/output options, it would be great to have a PCIe slot. That would give the opportunity to directly connect SSD drives to these computers, which would undoubtedly make it especially interesting as an alternative in the miniPC segment.

In Xataka | Raspberry Pi 5 already has a new model. A cheaper one that follows in the wake of the “25 dollar computer”