22 ms·

Pi-Top 4

151 points by KirinDave 7y ago

groovybits 7y ago
Correction: The Pi-Top 4 has been announced. The Pi-Top 3 is the previous model that is currently available for purchase. https://accounts.pi-top.com/products/pi-top/ https://accounts.pi-top.com/products/pi-top/
- ThrowawayR2 7y ago
  A curious choice of names. Unlike the Pi-Top 3 and -2, the Pi-Top 4 appears to be in a block form factor rather than a (lap)Top?
  - groovybits 7y ago
    Thats what it appears to be. Pi-Top (the brand) has always been geared towards maker-centric use cases. The previous Pi-Top models allowed you to incorporate plug-n-play modules into the laptop itself. Perhaps they thought the built-in peripherals limiting for those who want to use the Pi-Top for a headless project. They showcase drones, bots and similar use cases on the announcement page.
  - mynameisvlad 7y ago
    However, it seems you can connect it to a laptop-like device based on one of the product images. I wonder if they're building a laptop accessory that's driven by the main unit?
    - groovybits 7y ago
      Image[1] I've never seen that product before. It appears to be a Pi-Top branded tablet/screen attached to a keyboard. 1: https://www.pi-top.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Redesigned%20website/pi-top%204%20page/PT_pi-top%5B4%5D_pagehero3-min%20(1)%20(1).png?width=2560&name=PT_pi-top%5B4%5D_pagehero3-min%20(1)%20(1).png https://www.pi-top.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Redesigned%20website/pi-t...
      - rm445 7y ago
        I wondered about that as well - but there's a reasonable chance it's just a sticker on a generic tablet-keyboard combo.
  - bmurphy1976 7y ago
    Hopefully if you want the laptop form factor you can just buy the Pi-Top 3 and stick a 4 in there.
    - extra88 7y ago
      You can't, the port types and arrangement have changed substantially between the Raspberry Pi 3 and 4. For example, the Pi-Top 3 has holes for exposing the Pi 3's Ethernet port and two of the USB ports but the Pi 4 changed the position of the Ethernet and USB ports.
mavhc 7y ago
How much?
- ant6n 7y ago
  What is it?
pulse7 7y ago
Any clue about the price? Previous versions were not cheap...
- groovybits 7y ago
  Only speculation until official announcement. However, it is worth noting that the Pi-Top 4 does not include built-in peripherals. That may affect the price.
- jandrese 7y ago
  I have one of the older Pi-Tops. Everything about it except the price is cheap. The keyboard was just awful, the trackpad was worse, the battery management totally sucked, and the screen was annoyingly low resolution. Very disappointing. The new one looks considerably different than the model I have, so maybe they've fixed the issues, but I'm not inclined to buy another.
  - groovybits 7y ago
    > The keyboard was just awful, the trackpad was worse, the battery management totally sucked, and the screen was annoyingly low resolution. Perhaps thats why they did not include peripherals this time around. One of the big selling points of the Pi 4 is the 4K output. Providing anything less than a 4K screen would probably lock users into a disappointing product.
    - Konnstann 7y ago
      The majority of people are still using 1080p screens these days. My laptop has a 1440p screen but the other monitors I use at work are 1080p and work fine. I don't think anyone will be disappointed by a 1080p screen.
      - groovybits 7y ago
        > The majority of people are still using 1080p screens these days. Right, but for how long? It would be much easier to upgrade a separate monitor down the road. Otherwise, the Pi-Top team would need to make duplicate products: one laptop that supported a 1080p screen and another laptop that supported a 4K screen.
adam0c 7y ago
Very misleading, it states that "pi-top [4]" comes with all these great features like gigabit Ethernet and 2 usb 3's etc etc and that's just the raspberry pi 4. You're signing up and potentially paying for a really expensive case that includes q battery pack when there is a plethora of great cheap ones out already thanks to the great support from the pi community
- groovybits 7y ago
  What is misleading about it? The Pi specs are clearly labeled "POWERED BY PI". They go on to say "At the heart of pi‑top [4] is the brand new Raspberry Pi 4". They say the purchase itself includes the base plate, which houses all the extra sensors and ports. Judging from the pictures, it has a lot of ports. That is extra value added.
  - gregmac 7y ago
    I think part of it is just the marketing copy for this site is just, well, bad: > pi‑top [4] comes with the following: gigabit ethernet meaning faster network storage and access to servers, dual HDMI for two 4k screen displays, 4GB of LPDDR4 SDRAM meaning more applications can run, two USB 3 ports and one USB 2 port for connecting devices and peripherals. Nothing is listed that isn't part of the Pi 4 itself, while the picture clearly shows a bunch of other ports (what are they?). Later it mentions a "foundation plate" but with no details. Also, some of the built-in ports are not mentioned: * one of the USB 2 ports (guessing the case uses it for something?) * 2-lane MIPI DSI display port * 2-lane MIPI CSI camera port * 4-pole stereo audio and composite video port There's also a project page [1] that shows a camera added, which certainly looks like it uses the on-board camera port, but doesn't make it clear how that works or if the camera is included or not. [1] https://www.pi-top.com/bett-2019-maker-projects/portable-photobooth https://www.pi-top.com/bett-2019-maker-projects/portable-pho...
- moftz 7y ago
  Seems like the case includes a display, buttons, what looks like a speaker, a kit of sensors and actuators, and a breakout board to plug them into. Plus, I'm sure all of the software on the SD card is already setup to talk to those parts easily. If you are leading a class for kids on programming embedded hardware, you don't really want to waste time on how to setup a raspberry pi. The hardware is all ready out of the box.
rolltiide 7y ago
Love the model choices and I hope people find inspiration from them I observe that the main reason people this kind of inspiration contrived is because their experience with people that look similar are with people that pride themselves in not understanding technology. So there is an ongoing incongruence. Regarding the machine itself, it looks too big.
- aae42 7y ago
  i was just thinking how cheesy they looked, not contrived in how they look, just super outdated in their styles, young hip people don't look like that
- qorrect 7y ago
  The models completely turned me off of it.
giobox 7y ago
It looks nice enough, but like many of these Pi kits (including previous ones from this company) it will likely be somewhat expensive for what is being offered. I've yet to see any of these kits that I thought provided value over just buying a Pi plus separate components online for a reasonably motivated private individual. I think it's just likely really hard to get a reasonable margin on a product like this and keep the retail pricing sane. I can for sure see environments that this might be attractive, such as education etc, but if you are a vaguely capable software engineer you are almost always far better off just buying a raw Pi and the electrical components you would like separately. There is so much information out there that even a novice can quickly educate themselves on what they might need for a given project.
- khawkins 7y ago
  I'm always extremely disappointed by the marketing of extremely expensive engineering kits and robots towards education. Most of the practical learning to be had is in figuring out how to make the thing work. The kits become little more than elaborate toys with a few extra steps added to make the student feel like they did something. However, all they did was follow instructions. For at least 90% of what engineers do on a regular basis, following carefully tested instructions is not one of them.
  - moron4hire 7y ago
    There is a significant issue of retention for students. You typically want a "training-wheels" sort of experience to capture the student's imagination early on. Will it be the last tech they ever but? Obviously not. But having options other than "build stuff from scratch" is super important to growing interest in any particular industry. Written by a guy who experienced a hell of a lot of criticism 20 years ago for writing games in JavaScript and now is the lead VR product engineer for a company.
  - whywhywhywhy 7y ago
    "what we were seeing was the "hacker phenomenon," that, for any given pursuit, a particular 5% of the population will jump into it naturally, while the 80% or so who can learn it in time do not find it at all natural." [0] What you're describing is something that comes naturally to you and almost every person on this website. Kids who think that way will likely end up in engineering of some sort regardless. The rest need this sort of guided approach to even show them that they could even possibly do this sort of thing and it helps move that percentage up. Although, that being said I don't really think much to the Pi-Top 4 at all. You'd definitely have a more valuable empowering experience holding an actual board and plugging wires directly into it, the end result would be the same and I feel they smoothed out the wrong part of the experience. [0] http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/#smalltalkAndChildren http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/#smalltalkAndC...
VectorLock 7y ago
How far do I have to scroll to find out details about the actual hardware?
- ben509 7y ago
  I never found any. I read "What's in the box" and was trying to parse it: > Every pi‑top [4] comes with 12 pi-top component modules comprising programmable sensors, buttons and LEDs to bring your inventions to life. Okay, so pi-top [4] is the main thing in the box. Thus there are 12 pi-top component modules, so I guess it's a variety pack of sensors and buttons? Well, how many of each, and what are they? > You connect these to your pi‑top [4] using a Foundation Plate that fits snuggly underneath it. We further learn the pi-top [4] is a thing, and this plate fits it. Obviously, I can infer that it's the case with the CPU, but this product is trying to introduce people to programming. It's amazing that a company can put up a product page that never plainly explains what you're buying. And this is shockingly common.
Noxmiles 7y ago
What is the benefit of this? I can use the pi without a big package for all these projects, i didn't see the Advantage of it?
- yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
  Looks like Hardware peripherals
blhack 7y ago
The raspberry pi occupies a really sad place for me. I know so, so many people who were very well intentioned, and bought a raspberry pi for one of their friends or family members. They've heard of "making", and the good associations that it has, and they see things about the raspberry pi, so they go on amazon and buy some pi-kit thing. SO many of these things end up sitting in boxes or on shelves. The raspberry pi is pretty cool for a very small niche of things, but really the main thing making it interesting is that it's a cheap desktop computer. If you already have a computer in your house, then you've already got a much, much more powerful version of a raspberry pi. If you have a friend or family member who is interested in an introduction to software and hardware engineering, or electronics, then they'll be MUCH MUCH better off with one of these: https://www.seeedstudio.com/Shield-Bot-p-1380.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/Shield-Bot-p-1380.html and an arduino uno. Please stop buying these raspberry pi kit things unless you have one of the specific use cases (a small desktop computer) in mind. They seem like so much marketing, and in my opinion, they are actually hurting the movement of people learning to program and build hardware devices.
- moneytalks 7y ago
  I was 100% with you until > Please stop buying these raspberry pi kit things unless you have one of the specific use cases (a small desktop computer) in mind. They seem like so much marketing, and in my opinion, they are actually hurting the movement of people learning to program and build hardware devices. How does buying one with good intentions that goes unused hurt any other effort? I don't think I'd have even heard of any other devices if it weren't for the attention that the Pi gets.
  - blhack 7y ago
    Because kids get them, don't do anything useful or fun with them, and conclude that engineering is not for them. They also eat up often-tight discretionary budgets for educational tools.
    - sdinsn 7y ago
      Pi's are dirt cheap, they aren't using up budgets.
TickleSteve 7y ago
Particularly bad website... scrolled all the way down but still no description...
pilchardbreath 7y ago
Here are some independent benchmarks from on the Pi4 performance.... https://twitter.com/JonMcLoone/status/1146443778972180480 https://twitter.com/JonMcLoone/status/1146443778972180480
ohazi 7y ago
It's too bad that Pi-Top is moving away from the laptop form-factor right around the time the Raspberry Pi is becoming usable as a desktop computer. I'd love to see a drop-in-replacement motherboard design for an old hardy laptop (maybe something like a ThinkPad X220 -- < $100 on ebay). This could end up being fairly straightforward to design once the Compute Module 4 comes out. Some new hinges and a little elbow grease and you could have a nice little 20-hour-battery laptop that's actually usable.
stonogo 7y ago
I am extremely displeased that none of the previous Pi-Top hardware is compatible with the Raspberry Pi 4. The Pi-Top team is quite unresponsive and will provide no technical details. I suspect it's because their drivers do not build on aarch64 or work with the Stretch kernel, but to find out I'll have to spend hours reverse-engineering everything. It's a real failure in product design.
- whywhywhywhy 7y ago
  It's definitely a product design failure, but is the failure on their end or the Pi Foundation's end? Every major board revision the Foundation ships has seemingly no upgrade path, the amount of things that breaks every time they move Debian versions is unacceptable. The real product design failure seems to be building upon the Pi at all.
Lowkeyloki 7y ago
I got the original Pi-Top when it was crowdfunded and I was sorely disappointed, mostly due to the extremely poor quality of the keyboard. The whole thing was awfully big, too. To the point of being unwieldy. Has anyone here bought a "Pi-Top [3]"? Has the quality/design improved at all?
iamaelephant 7y ago
I'm not going to give you my personal details if you won't front up with basic information like a price, shipping costs and whether or not you'll ship internationally (and where). Interesting device, great marketing, but hell no.
Robotbeat 7y ago
What I want is something like a OLPC XO. Rugged, kid-friendly, etc. No (regular) internet.
- rm445 7y ago
  The "No (regular) internet" thing is tough - the global public Internet is kinda the only game in town. But otherwise, there are so many cheap laptops that can run Linux. We're in a golden age.
  - Robotbeat 7y ago
    I want a cheap and rugged laptop. With access to kid-friendly Wikipedia, drawing and programming and a few educational applications as well as maybe some music.

151 points by KirinDave 7y ago

Correction: The Pi-Top 4 has been announced. The Pi-Top 3 is the previous model that is currently available for purchase. https://accounts.pi-top.com/products/pi-top/ https://accounts.pi-top.com/products/pi-top/

ThrowawayR2 7y ago
A curious choice of names. Unlike the Pi-Top 3 and -2, the Pi-Top 4 appears to be in a block form factor rather than a (lap)Top?
- groovybits 7y ago
  Thats what it appears to be. Pi-Top (the brand) has always been geared towards maker-centric use cases. The previous Pi-Top models allowed you to incorporate plug-n-play modules into the laptop itself. Perhaps they thought the built-in peripherals limiting for those who want to use the Pi-Top for a headless project. They showcase drones, bots and similar use cases on the announcement page.
- mynameisvlad 7y ago
  However, it seems you can connect it to a laptop-like device based on one of the product images. I wonder if they're building a laptop accessory that's driven by the main unit?
  - groovybits 7y ago
    Image[1] I've never seen that product before. It appears to be a Pi-Top branded tablet/screen attached to a keyboard. 1: https://www.pi-top.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Redesigned%20website/pi-top%204%20page/PT_pi-top%5B4%5D_pagehero3-min%20(1)%20(1).png?width=2560&name=PT_pi-top%5B4%5D_pagehero3-min%20(1)%20(1).png https://www.pi-top.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Redesigned%20website/pi-t...
    - rm445 7y ago
      I wondered about that as well - but there's a reasonable chance it's just a sticker on a generic tablet-keyboard combo.
- bmurphy1976 7y ago
  Hopefully if you want the laptop form factor you can just buy the Pi-Top 3 and stick a 4 in there.
  - extra88 7y ago
    You can't, the port types and arrangement have changed substantially between the Raspberry Pi 3 and 4. For example, the Pi-Top 3 has holes for exposing the Pi 3's Ethernet port and two of the USB ports but the Pi 4 changed the position of the Ethernet and USB ports.

mavhc 7y ago

How much?

ant6n 7y ago
What is it?

pulse7 7y ago

Any clue about the price? Previous versions were not cheap...

groovybits 7y ago
Only speculation until official announcement. However, it is worth noting that the Pi-Top 4 does not include built-in peripherals. That may affect the price.
jandrese 7y ago
I have one of the older Pi-Tops. Everything about it except the price is cheap. The keyboard was just awful, the trackpad was worse, the battery management totally sucked, and the screen was annoyingly low resolution. Very disappointing. The new one looks considerably different than the model I have, so maybe they've fixed the issues, but I'm not inclined to buy another.
- groovybits 7y ago
  > The keyboard was just awful, the trackpad was worse, the battery management totally sucked, and the screen was annoyingly low resolution. Perhaps thats why they did not include peripherals this time around. One of the big selling points of the Pi 4 is the 4K output. Providing anything less than a 4K screen would probably lock users into a disappointing product.
  - Konnstann 7y ago
    The majority of people are still using 1080p screens these days. My laptop has a 1440p screen but the other monitors I use at work are 1080p and work fine. I don't think anyone will be disappointed by a 1080p screen.
    - groovybits 7y ago
      > The majority of people are still using 1080p screens these days. Right, but for how long? It would be much easier to upgrade a separate monitor down the road. Otherwise, the Pi-Top team would need to make duplicate products: one laptop that supported a 1080p screen and another laptop that supported a 4K screen.

adam0c 7y ago

Very misleading, it states that "pi-top [4]" comes with all these great features like gigabit Ethernet and 2 usb 3's etc etc and that's just the raspberry pi 4. You're signing up and potentially paying for a really expensive case that includes q battery pack when there is a plethora of great cheap ones out already thanks to the great support from the pi community

groovybits 7y ago
What is misleading about it? The Pi specs are clearly labeled "POWERED BY PI". They go on to say "At the heart of pi‑top [4] is the brand new Raspberry Pi 4". They say the purchase itself includes the base plate, which houses all the extra sensors and ports. Judging from the pictures, it has a lot of ports. That is extra value added.
- gregmac 7y ago
  I think part of it is just the marketing copy for this site is just, well, bad: > pi‑top [4] comes with the following: gigabit ethernet meaning faster network storage and access to servers, dual HDMI for two 4k screen displays, 4GB of LPDDR4 SDRAM meaning more applications can run, two USB 3 ports and one USB 2 port for connecting devices and peripherals. Nothing is listed that isn't part of the Pi 4 itself, while the picture clearly shows a bunch of other ports (what are they?). Later it mentions a "foundation plate" but with no details. Also, some of the built-in ports are not mentioned: * one of the USB 2 ports (guessing the case uses it for something?) * 2-lane MIPI DSI display port * 2-lane MIPI CSI camera port * 4-pole stereo audio and composite video port There's also a project page [1] that shows a camera added, which certainly looks like it uses the on-board camera port, but doesn't make it clear how that works or if the camera is included or not. [1] https://www.pi-top.com/bett-2019-maker-projects/portable-photobooth https://www.pi-top.com/bett-2019-maker-projects/portable-pho...
moftz 7y ago
Seems like the case includes a display, buttons, what looks like a speaker, a kit of sensors and actuators, and a breakout board to plug them into. Plus, I'm sure all of the software on the SD card is already setup to talk to those parts easily. If you are leading a class for kids on programming embedded hardware, you don't really want to waste time on how to setup a raspberry pi. The hardware is all ready out of the box.

rolltiide 7y ago

Love the model choices and I hope people find inspiration from them I observe that the main reason people this kind of inspiration contrived is because their experience with people that look similar are with people that pride themselves in not understanding technology. So there is an ongoing incongruence. Regarding the machine itself, it looks too big.

aae42 7y ago
i was just thinking how cheesy they looked, not contrived in how they look, just super outdated in their styles, young hip people don't look like that
qorrect 7y ago
The models completely turned me off of it.

giobox 7y ago

It looks nice enough, but like many of these Pi kits (including previous ones from this company) it will likely be somewhat expensive for what is being offered. I've yet to see any of these kits that I thought provided value over just buying a Pi plus separate components online for a reasonably motivated private individual. I think it's just likely really hard to get a reasonable margin on a product like this and keep the retail pricing sane. I can for sure see environments that this might be attractive, such as education etc, but if you are a vaguely capable software engineer you are almost always far better off just buying a raw Pi and the electrical components you would like separately. There is so much information out there that even a novice can quickly educate themselves on what they might need for a given project.

khawkins 7y ago
I'm always extremely disappointed by the marketing of extremely expensive engineering kits and robots towards education. Most of the practical learning to be had is in figuring out how to make the thing work. The kits become little more than elaborate toys with a few extra steps added to make the student feel like they did something. However, all they did was follow instructions. For at least 90% of what engineers do on a regular basis, following carefully tested instructions is not one of them.
- moron4hire 7y ago
  There is a significant issue of retention for students. You typically want a "training-wheels" sort of experience to capture the student's imagination early on. Will it be the last tech they ever but? Obviously not. But having options other than "build stuff from scratch" is super important to growing interest in any particular industry. Written by a guy who experienced a hell of a lot of criticism 20 years ago for writing games in JavaScript and now is the lead VR product engineer for a company.
- whywhywhywhy 7y ago
  "what we were seeing was the "hacker phenomenon," that, for any given pursuit, a particular 5% of the population will jump into it naturally, while the 80% or so who can learn it in time do not find it at all natural." [0] What you're describing is something that comes naturally to you and almost every person on this website. Kids who think that way will likely end up in engineering of some sort regardless. The rest need this sort of guided approach to even show them that they could even possibly do this sort of thing and it helps move that percentage up. Although, that being said I don't really think much to the Pi-Top 4 at all. You'd definitely have a more valuable empowering experience holding an actual board and plugging wires directly into it, the end result would be the same and I feel they smoothed out the wrong part of the experience. [0] http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/#smalltalkAndChildren http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/#smalltalkAndC...

VectorLock 7y ago

How far do I have to scroll to find out details about the actual hardware?

ben509 7y ago
I never found any. I read "What's in the box" and was trying to parse it: > Every pi‑top [4] comes with 12 pi-top component modules comprising programmable sensors, buttons and LEDs to bring your inventions to life. Okay, so pi-top [4] is the main thing in the box. Thus there are 12 pi-top component modules, so I guess it's a variety pack of sensors and buttons? Well, how many of each, and what are they? > You connect these to your pi‑top [4] using a Foundation Plate that fits snuggly underneath it. We further learn the pi-top [4] is a thing, and this plate fits it. Obviously, I can infer that it's the case with the CPU, but this product is trying to introduce people to programming. It's amazing that a company can put up a product page that never plainly explains what you're buying. And this is shockingly common.

Noxmiles 7y ago

What is the benefit of this? I can use the pi without a big package for all these projects, i didn't see the Advantage of it?

yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
Looks like Hardware peripherals

blhack 7y ago

The raspberry pi occupies a really sad place for me. I know so, so many people who were very well intentioned, and bought a raspberry pi for one of their friends or family members. They've heard of "making", and the good associations that it has, and they see things about the raspberry pi, so they go on amazon and buy some pi-kit thing. SO many of these things end up sitting in boxes or on shelves. The raspberry pi is pretty cool for a very small niche of things, but really the main thing making it interesting is that it's a cheap desktop computer. If you already have a computer in your house, then you've already got a much, much more powerful version of a raspberry pi. If you have a friend or family member who is interested in an introduction to software and hardware engineering, or electronics, then they'll be MUCH MUCH better off with one of these: https://www.seeedstudio.com/Shield-Bot-p-1380.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/Shield-Bot-p-1380.html and an arduino uno. Please stop buying these raspberry pi kit things unless you have one of the specific use cases (a small desktop computer) in mind. They seem like so much marketing, and in my opinion, they are actually hurting the movement of people learning to program and build hardware devices.

moneytalks 7y ago
I was 100% with you until > Please stop buying these raspberry pi kit things unless you have one of the specific use cases (a small desktop computer) in mind. They seem like so much marketing, and in my opinion, they are actually hurting the movement of people learning to program and build hardware devices. How does buying one with good intentions that goes unused hurt any other effort? I don't think I'd have even heard of any other devices if it weren't for the attention that the Pi gets.
- blhack 7y ago
  Because kids get them, don't do anything useful or fun with them, and conclude that engineering is not for them. They also eat up often-tight discretionary budgets for educational tools.
  - sdinsn 7y ago
    Pi's are dirt cheap, they aren't using up budgets.

TickleSteve 7y ago

Particularly bad website... scrolled all the way down but still no description...

pilchardbreath 7y ago

Here are some independent benchmarks from on the Pi4 performance.... https://twitter.com/JonMcLoone/status/1146443778972180480 https://twitter.com/JonMcLoone/status/1146443778972180480

ohazi 7y ago

It's too bad that Pi-Top is moving away from the laptop form-factor right around the time the Raspberry Pi is becoming usable as a desktop computer. I'd love to see a drop-in-replacement motherboard design for an old hardy laptop (maybe something like a ThinkPad X220 -- < $100 on ebay). This could end up being fairly straightforward to design once the Compute Module 4 comes out. Some new hinges and a little elbow grease and you could have a nice little 20-hour-battery laptop that's actually usable.

stonogo 7y ago

I am extremely displeased that none of the previous Pi-Top hardware is compatible with the Raspberry Pi 4. The Pi-Top team is quite unresponsive and will provide no technical details. I suspect it's because their drivers do not build on aarch64 or work with the Stretch kernel, but to find out I'll have to spend hours reverse-engineering everything. It's a real failure in product design.

whywhywhywhy 7y ago
It's definitely a product design failure, but is the failure on their end or the Pi Foundation's end? Every major board revision the Foundation ships has seemingly no upgrade path, the amount of things that breaks every time they move Debian versions is unacceptable. The real product design failure seems to be building upon the Pi at all.

Lowkeyloki 7y ago

I got the original Pi-Top when it was crowdfunded and I was sorely disappointed, mostly due to the extremely poor quality of the keyboard. The whole thing was awfully big, too. To the point of being unwieldy. Has anyone here bought a "Pi-Top [3]"? Has the quality/design improved at all?

iamaelephant 7y ago

I'm not going to give you my personal details if you won't front up with basic information like a price, shipping costs and whether or not you'll ship internationally (and where). Interesting device, great marketing, but hell no.

Robotbeat 7y ago

What I want is something like a OLPC XO. Rugged, kid-friendly, etc. No (regular) internet.

rm445 7y ago
The "No (regular) internet" thing is tough - the global public Internet is kinda the only game in town. But otherwise, there are so many cheap laptops that can run Linux. We're in a golden age.
- Robotbeat 7y ago
  I want a cheap and rugged laptop. With access to kid-friendly Wikipedia, drawing and programming and a few educational applications as well as maybe some music.