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I have been playing with a Raspberry 400 for couple of days now. I thought of recommend it for my nephew, but couldn't do it because of the following drawbacks.

I have been playing with a Raspberry 400 for couple of days now. I thought of recommend it for my nephew, but couldn't do it because of the following drawbacks. 1. Lack of 3.5mm audio jack or built-in microphone/speakers 2. Unable to run Zoom reliably Given that schools are closed (at least in India) and classes are happening over zoom, these two drawbacks makes it a no-go for my use case.

8bitsrule 6y ago
Good point. Audio from a 3.5mm jack would add little to the cost, and also keep down headphone cost. Also, most monitors have really shitty audio. Boo. "Getting audio out of the Pi 400 was a bit of a challenge; it defaulted to attempting to deliver audio over HDMI, and Raspberry Pi OS' audio control dialog isn't the best. Even after changing the output device to USB Audio (my gaming headset), YouTube wasn't producing audio—and there's no "test" button I could find in Pi OS, like the one in Ubuntu's audio-control dialog. Closing and reopening the browser entirely after changing the output device resolved the issue, and audio played from the headset fine afterward." https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/raspberry-pi-400-the-under-100-desktop-pc-you-didnt-know-you-needed/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/raspberry-pi-400-the...
- MarkusWandel 6y ago
  My experience has been fine. Whether with the default audio device picker (which doesn't work correctly once you've installed PulseAudio) or PA's own "pavucontrol" selecting output device is snap. Sometimes you have to restart the audio-producing program to use the new selection, which is a feature, not a bug - you could have different programs use different audio devices at the same time. So to get the usual 3.5mm jacks, just buy a cheap USB/analog headset adapter; about $3 from Ali Express. Select as input and output, and done. Microphone is usually not an issue if you're using a webcam since most have an adequate one built in.
charwalker 6y ago
Would you be able to output audio or have a audio/headphone/headset jack via a monitor over HDMI? Bluetooth is also an option but would require a headset and setup to work well I think.

8bitsrule 6y ago

Good point. Audio from a 3.5mm jack would add little to the cost, and also keep down headphone cost. Also, most monitors have really shitty audio. Boo. "Getting audio out of the Pi 400 was a bit of a challenge; it defaulted to attempting to deliver audio over HDMI, and Raspberry Pi OS' audio control dialog isn't the best. Even after changing the output device to USB Audio (my gaming headset), YouTube wasn't producing audio—and there's no "test" button I could find in Pi OS, like the one in Ubuntu's audio-control dialog. Closing and reopening the browser entirely after changing the output device resolved the issue, and audio played from the headset fine afterward." https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/raspberry-pi-400-the-under-100-desktop-pc-you-didnt-know-you-needed/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/raspberry-pi-400-the...

MarkusWandel 6y ago
My experience has been fine. Whether with the default audio device picker (which doesn't work correctly once you've installed PulseAudio) or PA's own "pavucontrol" selecting output device is snap. Sometimes you have to restart the audio-producing program to use the new selection, which is a feature, not a bug - you could have different programs use different audio devices at the same time. So to get the usual 3.5mm jacks, just buy a cheap USB/analog headset adapter; about $3 from Ali Express. Select as input and output, and done. Microphone is usually not an issue if you're using a webcam since most have an adequate one built in.

charwalker 6y ago

Would you be able to output audio or have a audio/headphone/headset jack via a monitor over HDMI? Bluetooth is also an option but would require a headset and setup to work well I think.