This New Raspberry Pi Laptop Is Actually Pretty Good, CrowPi L Hands On

[@JoshuaMattingly]

ETA Prime gets all the cool toys. Thanks for sharing.

[@NickyShadow99]

The dual boot idea is actually really clever. The idea of hot swapping your pi between different setups with a "default" os is neat.

[@mawizard6341]

A switch to switch SD cards. I love it when people solve software issues with hardware.

[@AltCutTV]

Should have used the GPIO to control some tiny relay switches to change between them. Then a reboot script to switch to the other card automatic. Could not be made simpler!

[@mawizard6341]

@@AltCutTV what if we where to make a relay panel that just switched out the HDMI, keyboard and USB connected to a switch! That way you essentially just switch between two computers!

[@AltCutTV]

@@mawizard6341 Perfect. And the computers could have magnets built in to carry around both of them as one package.

[@aqmohra4]

Not cost effective. For similar price you can get a celeron processor laptop

[@AltCutTV]

This one is upgradable to RBPi5 though. :)

[@microlinux]

@@AltCutTV by the time rpi5 launch, a 1366x768 panel would be too low end...

[@AltCutTV]

@@microlinux By that standard it already is. Since Pi4 is a 2x4K system. But, a higer res screen is probably not all that useful on this scale anyway. Just remembered my old netbook. 800x600 screen. Good times.. :)

[@schwartz478]

I think technically it is. What if the os gets messed up? Then reflash the SD card. The raspberry pi burns out? No problem replace that, what if the crow pi is a mess and no more laptop? Just take the pi out to use it like a desktop until the next croq pi body comes in the mail

[@BeetleBuns]

@@schwartz478 replace the pi with what lmao? Another pi that costs as much as another laptop? LMAO

[@thebigt42]

Thanks, Raspberry Pi 5 designers for swapping the port around to insure no case backward compatibility.

[@SMASHINGblargharghar]

Even having a few Pi4's on hand, I can't justify the price point. At $150, this would be very attractive but I'm sure there would be way too many cutbacks to do so. It's too bad because I honestly think this would be a really cool toy to have around, but why bother when I can buy a budget or used laptop with significantly better performance for the combined price of this and 4gb Pi4? $300 can buy a pretty decent machine these days. And that's factoring in retail price of a Pi4 which is not an easy thing to come by.

[@thopkins2814]

I guess this product is for people with money to burn. I could easily get a new/used netbook or chromebook that will run circles around this for $200 - $300.

[@SMorrisRose]

Yes, used equipment is cheaper than new. And if it's a Windows laptop you want, this doesn't compete with a used one. But for a maker, this is a charming and useful tool.

[@SteveHazel]

why bother? cuz your linux app is targetting ubuntu and THIS wonderful little os. raspi is aimin to be the next windows i think. apple/google/windows are mainframes. ubuntu and raspberry pi os are the new pcs. kinda :)

[@ShadeSlayer1911]

The fact that this device competes with the used laptop market makes it pretty unviable for most people. Even for $150, you'd still be having to buy the actual pi4, which isn't exactly cheap. I've seen them running for over a hundred right now. The 8gb model is running for almost $200. That means you're dropping almost $400 for this single board computer. You could get a decent used laptop that gives you much better performance, especially a decent lenovo. The thing about Pis that made me like them was that they were cheap computers that you could tinker with. Now, they're too expensive for what they are, and too expensive for me to tinker around with. The Pi4 certainly is impressive. But even before the price hike, it was too expensive for me to consider. If you wanted a more powerful machine, you wouldn't go for a Pi anyways. And if you were going for a pi, nearly a hundred dollars isn't what you should be spending on one. I feel that the Pi4 priced itself out of its own market. Once you get above $50, you're creeping into the area where you could spend a little bit more for a used cheap regular computer. Even if it sucks, it's probably still more powerful than a Pi.

[@mrragnarok3863]

Well it's bit pricey but it's within my expectations.

[@chromerims]

Thank you ETA. 👍 The bar for a future rPi5 feels like it's going to be high. Excited to see what they come up with. Hopefully its retail price stays reasonably affordable (adjusting appropriately for both ongoing chip-mmagedon as well as wider general price inflation).

[@longnamedude3947]

Adjusting the ASP (Average Selling Price) of the Raspberry Pi up even further above what it is already at is just going to price it's original target market completely out of the picture and make it's entire purpose of existence arguably irrelevant. It was aimed at and designed for young people with very little money and for educational usage. Both situations require a ASP of roughly $15-$20 in order to be relevant to the most amount of people whilst retaining competituve hardware specifications. Right now the Raspberry Pi Foundation are not meeting that target price or market with their mainstream offering and so I feel it is fair to say that going forwards the Raspberry Pi Lineup of SBC's is now targetted clearly at more up-market consumers with money to burn, something the average household can no longer afford or justify.

[@ShadeSlayer1911]

@@longnamedude3947 I agree.

[@BilisNegra]

With most people unable to get their hands on a pi 4 at their proper retail price, not just for a little while but will be for an eventual total of a year or more, I doubt many folks are even thinking of how a future Pi 5 might be

[@AndreVandal]

5:10 - You say you'd rather plug in a mouse and keyboard, I'm wondering how useful a portable is if neither the trackpad or the keyboard is good enough

[@zhetesteur3654]

To be more comfortable~

[@mraltoid19]

Reminds me of the old Asus EEE Pc laptops.

[@mt-qc2qh]

I wish i could convert my old asus eee to rpi!!!!

[@Chrish1981]

Out of all the laptop kits you've reviewed, this is by far the coolest!

[@sarthaksingh5480]

Today's kids are so lucky to have technology surrounding unlike our generation in 2006 2007 😭.

[@IRWPD]

Being able to dual boot with too different cards is super cool.

[@creechrfeechr8094]

Ah raspberry pi 4's. Remember those?

[@linuxization4205]

Yeah I remember when they were 40 bucks... Ahh, early 2020...

[@joevwgti.]

That's very close to what I've been waiting for. Thanks for the review.

[@florianfelix8295]

There are cm4 compatible boards from pine64 for example…still seems like a preferable choice!

[@imranexltd]

Good luck! Finding Raspberry Pi 😁👍 Stock Out even here on Mars (❌)

[@MarcusArmstrong037]

Yes, you can order it with or without a Pi 4. They have the 4GB and 8GB options. It adds $110 or $150 to the price. Since I already have a Pi 4, I could maybe justify ~$250 for the base kit. I can order sensors and other stuff as needed.

[@kevinlopezobrien5366]

Rather neat and clean accessory for current rpi owners like myself. This is very nicely executed, and something I'm quite interested in!

[@Alan_UK]

Good clear review at a nice pace. What I think is lacking is an SSD. I know that will possibly make it less competitive but using SD cards is not practicable in the long run especially when used as a work-a-day machine. SD card fail, full stop!

[@longnamedude3947]

A great accessorie for a product that you cannot buy. Easy pass on this one. It doesn't matter what variant of the Raspberry Pi you are after, none of them are in stock at the retailers in the UK. Right now SBC's are pretty dead in the water, they are either under-powered and over-priced, OR, they have AWFUL software support. And good luck trying to find one in stock at a reasonable price for the perfromance & features that they offer. Also, this is just a Chunky AF Netbook with similar perfromance to a Netbook to go with it, for roughly the same price as what a average Netbook used to retail for. It misses the mark completely.

[@jotighe2]

Or anywhere else on earth, for that matter. The market will move onto something else. I liked the pi while it lasted (just a demo toy to sell chips, really).

[@longnamedude3947]

@@jotighe2 It sure was a great piece of kit while it lasted! I will savour the fond memories I have of it and other similarly priced SBC's. Ultimately though I will move on to something else with better value as will many other people I suspect.

[@murdock94]

This would be an interesting kit to do fun stuff with. I do wish they offered a CM4 version, but I'm wondering how much more the CrowPi would be with needing all the extra bits for it to use the CM4.

[@pranze3484]

Oh, a 2001 netbook form factor for the same price as a Lenovo ultra slim yoga Chromebook with alder lake you could install Linux on.

[@JerziTBoss]

Now this looks really good. I don't mind it being for RPI4 instead of CM4 because you're not loosing anything by using one or the another... Well except that this one is thicker but on the other hand you get bit better angle on the keyboard due to the thickness. Even in pricing it's quite competitive with other small / cheap laptops because with RPI4 it costs only like 360USD so it's quite good. I don't see many bad things with this laptop. Maybe the trackpad placement is weird but I don't like using trackpads so it's not end of the world.

[@valveman12]

It looks great. I wish they would have included an m.2 NVME connector.

[@srvuk]

I cannot see why many would really consider this. It was excessively expensive and when you consider how powerful the Pi4 isn't compared to Intel and AMD processors that you will find in laptops at the same price, you would not even consider this. Right out of the review we hear 3 hours battery life, which would be laughable. The crow tail sensor kit is the one key differentiator that may have more niche use, possibly for business/industrial sectors but you just can't get away from that price for what you are actually getting.

[@SweBeach2023]

Why would you even consider comparing this laptop to a normal one? Rasperry Pi is supposed to be used for tinkering, development, minor projects, learning etc. With a huge community behind it so many projects would be so much easier to do on this laptop as compared to a normal Windows laptop. The price we pay is a clunky form-factor and low performance. But for a lot of things, the performance is more than enough. I'm sure anyone buying this is more than aware of the potential shortcomings of the Pi and the alternatives if looking for a conventional laptop.

[@PacAnimal]

The geek in me really wants one. The rational side can't understand why. You can get cheap laptops for the price of the laptop and pi combined, and with the specialized connectors this is unlikely to fit the Pi5, so you can't upgrade later. All you have here is a thick, slow laptop, with little battery life, and that can't really run Windows. Thus it has low resale value when you tire of it. I still want one though.

[@KaletheQuick]

This is probably the best I have seen thusfar. Ive wanted just a rpi laptop for taking notes in college. A lot of these add extra gimmicks for education when essentially all I want is an rpi mainboard for a framework laptop. Anyway, if I get this and take notes with vim or nano without a GUI, I could probably get a day's worth of note taking out of it.

[@atranimecs]

Yes pricey but I feel like making a comparison to just another laptop isn't accurate. This would be a nice plug n play setup for a greenhouse needing sensors. It takes a lot more time and similar investment to go another route anyway.

[@learningtoride1714]

fingers crossed for a pi 5 version, that will be a fun version.

[@Munchbyte-goblin]

Seen a few different pi laptop setups this is by far the one i like best

[@JohnHydeisawesome]

I wish more these cases would have better support for more chips like the ones from lattepandas (could you imagine a handheld lattepanda case where you can install steamos)

[@farisomeragic8900]

I dream of running Playstation 2 and GameCube games on a single board computer. Probably with pi 5. But the new sbc RK3588s on the market is doing some good job.

[@ssthunder_playz]

Rk3588 is great for Ps2 emulation

[@crystallakedood]

They missed an opportunity by not calling the Chromium browser the "Crow-mium" browser. But that's just my opinion.Dope little kit regardless!

[@hawshimagical]

nice joke, but puns like this tend to risk making confusion

[@jaysinha0]

A good review of a good product. It just seems expensive compared to a chromebook which has Linux enabled on it.

[@JazzTechie]

A CM4 based laptop would be a cool project.

[@AandB1998]

I recently bought an elitedesk 800 g3 i5 with m.2 and 16 gb for $230. Rpi are fun and all, I have one myself, but at this price point it simply isn't worth it to me.

[@user-xf3gw6fo2n]

If they can swap the position of touchpad with the power button, that will be perfect!

[@ende_ohne]

For a bit better desktop experience on this I'd suggest You Ubuntu Desktop for the Raspberry Pi 4... It sadly needs a faster SD card than Raspberry Pi OS to run smooth but the whole Plug&Play/hot-plug experience is much better... You can connect external displays while the system is running and it will immediately work... For sound on the external display, You might need to restart bit it could've changed in the last 2 years when I installed Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on mine... Sadly one thing is pretty annoying on Ubuntu and that is that armhf-software won't work by default because the campatibility layer for armhf on the arm64-version isn't installed by default...

[@microlinux]

Armhf is dying. But yeah, you can install multiarch.

[@shanez1215]

Man it's crazy seeing how much Raspberry Pi's are selling for right now. I just have an adorable Pi zero.

[@goblinphreak2132]

I want to see raspberry pi make a new chip that actually has insane gpu performance.

[@russc788]

I would like a thin raspberry pi laptop. Perhaps with an eventual CM5?

[@jwoody8815]

Yes, on the Official site they are available as kits, Including the Pi4.

[@pweddy1]

I get the availability thing. But I really wanna see something like this that can except multiple raspberry pi CMs. Like a cluster in a laptop.

[@johnbuscher]

Now that would be cool!

[@UTJK.]

Ok, the concept is very nice and well executed too... but for 250 $ I don't see any reason other than collecting (or some super niche use cases), to have such a shell for the raspberry pi. Those money would be better invested on an used laptop if the price point is meaningful.

[@user-um9sl1kj6u]

They have Pi-top instructions on how to 3D print most of the case parts with downloadable schematics, and you can recycle an old laptop screen for it. I had wanted to do something like that with an Nvidia Tegra, with Linux being just fine (General web browsing, KZbin, email, emulation, etc, Plus developer tools). That was way back in the Tegra K-1 Days, and then when the first X1 board came out, and x2 board. Their Xavier model is still expensive, but I’m hoping the new Orin 8GB and 16 GB Nano will be affordable. That would be really nice in a Pi-Top, especially with Nvidia’s Vanilla Linux (Ubuntu)

[@Michael-Martell]

Lol initially I read the product name with a G instead of a C, and thought…”do they realize that the name of their product could be pernounced grope?!!!”

[@kattz753]

Definitely agree, this is the best one so far. Every other one has had something that is just a deal breaker. I kind of feel bad for this company. This is a great product but they're going to have a rough time due to the Pi shortage. Just bad timing. The only way to make this smaller is to use a conpute module but those have their own downsides.

[@TheBlackFoxMaster]

Искал медь а нашел золото. Просто охуенный ноутик. Жаль очень дорогой как для моей страны.

[@sunnygalli]

I feel like a CM4 option would be cool

[@leonidas14775]

I still think they should have gone with the compute module form factor. There's the Radxa CM3 and Pine64's SOQuartz which are compatible with the CM4

[@iG34RH34D]

Thanks for another awesome review. As always your editing and presentation are on point. You have a great channel here.

[@McKluskie]

hi, you get a lot of stuff in which makes great content, out of interest, do you buy it all yourself and sell it on / keep it, or is it all provided for review on a return basis?

[@dr.benjaminbird7631]

"why not just use a compute module 4" - availability is around the same as a pi4, but for this type of product its far cheaper and less effort to use a Pi4 - you need a carrier board that likely has Ethernet and USB3. Harder to design (although not that hard for a decent EE) and that isn't free to do, in monetary terms and time terms. The only real advantage of using a CM4 is more control over the form factor. But that's not really a massive issue on a niche product like this.

[@jotighe2]

This is a major accomplishment! Let's ignore that fact that it is a little thicker than other laptops at this point; it is irrelevant and distractive to keep bringing it up. The sensor attachment, well, not seeing the value in that. This will definitiely be a successful product, once it comes down in price by about $75-$100.

[@microlinux]

You can't make it for 100 bucks

[@SMASHINGblargharghar]

@@microlinux I'd bite for $150 if it were possible but I image there'd be way too many trade-offs to make it happen.

[@maksiodzidek1]

modularity is the future of laptops

[@DarkusObscurius]

An raspberry pi 5 with 16gb of RAM in this would be awesome!

[@BilisNegra]

We won't be able to get a 4 again until next year, who cares about the 5 now?

[@misogear]

Woah arm power have interesting future.

[@adnerayala3409]

Very hard to buy this one, too expensive

[@s7121n9s]

Here I am watching this knowing how hard it is for me to even get a Pi atm

[@ruxcooking]

Surprised that still nobody has a kit in the pinebook pro price range

[@TitaniumNitro]

It would be good if they just gave us 3d printer files for the case

[@kostasvapo69]

it could be even better :/ they dont try to much!

[@kostasvapo69]

@@obvious_giraffe8386 AMD's new cpus will support AVX2, AVX512, will have strong iGPU, low consumption, big compatibility in many applications cause of x86 + windows, up to 8 very powerful cores. We will see even Handhelds around 300$ with these specs. So where these Raspberry Pis can be competitive nowadays? Price? Even a smartphone has better specs (+4 cameras, touchscreen, gyroscope, portability) Raspberry Pi was good in the beginning as a small package. Now its just useless for most people other than programmers!

[@yonnelb]

Is it compatible with the Raspberry pi 5? Or is CrowPi planned for the Raspberry pi 5? Is it possible to buy components (adapters, internal cards) to repair your computer yourself?

[@ralphmcmahan2139]

I'd be first in line to purchase. If this was June 2020.

[@SuburbaniteUrbanite]

So if it comes with all the stuff… why aren’t they assembled already?

[@demonocolips]

wish it was a bit easier to reach that boot switch. understand you dont want to bump it accidentaly but needing to remove that panel to hit the switch is a little annoying.

[@gluttonousmaximus9048]

If it had a bigger battery and the CM4 I probably wouldn't mind using it as a laptop to watch videos and movies on the bed or on a long ride.

[@AlteredCarbons]

hard to get a cm4... man, i stopped trying to buy a pi4 all together. for months i been trying to get one said $#^& it and just intend to buy a cheap laptop

[@kevinbbadd]

Pi400 is easy to get

[@kevinbbadd]

@@obvious_giraffe8386 that sucks

[@largewallofbeans9812]

It's great and all but that trackpad placement is a big deal-breaker for me.

[@samthepianoman3774]

Hey eta prime did you reserve your ticket for a loki max

[@paulluce2557]

They have done a better job than the 'Pitop' people who built laptop kits based around the Pi 3 B a while back.

[@luischavela3318]

ETA PRIME do you know if Raspberry pi 5 is compatible with the Crow pi?

[@keksdose7696]

Looks cool and nice and all, but its too expensive to compete with other notebooks. I can get a new notebook for 320€ from lenovo with 15" display and everything. Why buying this instead?

[@linuxization4205]

We could stick a phone in here with the right positionining

[@shampec6185]

not bad notebooks are from 500 usd. no singificant reason to economy 150 to get limited ARM machine, except you want that architecture. cheap notebooks would have use

[@mughug9616]

Impressive but the price moves it seiously into laptop territory. Even for the lite version you can get a decent Windows 11 laptop with 11th gen Intel, DDR4 and NVMe. I love my existing two Pis but there is no way I could justify to myself getting one of these.

[@ClaudioLuke]

Excellent !

[@fixme.96]

review the Lenovo ThinkPad X13s ARM laptop

[@heesanbahri3860]

This makes me really excited for the next gen Raspberry Pi 5

[@mavfan1]

and then when the 5 is out you can get really excited about the 6!!!!!

[@steffdia7080]

Have fun waiting 3-4 years.

[@sbstndltn]

I would definitely like to see what the next gen Raspberry Pi 5 would be like.

[@zezba9000]

Really cool BUT dam are Pi's overpriced atm making this laptop way to much outside IoT

[@ferrellsl]

Sheesh, at $408 USD for the 8GB RAM version I'll definitely pass....

[@seguramlk]

Ubuntu MATE would be the PERFECT match for this laptop. Keep it up 👍

[@JamesSmith-sw3nk]

Good video. Nobody will buy this at $250 when you can a much faster cheap laptop for around the same money on a Dell or HP sale. Just another niche product that will fail.

[@trelauney]

Could we get any details on the battery? 3 hour runtime isn't great - emergencies & ups level - but what about sourcing replacements?

[@microlinux]

Rpi4 isn't exactly power efficient

[@opfax163]

framework should watch their back , raspberry is here 🤣

[@derekswitzer9624]

I see if you have batocera on one card (which is AWESOME) it just works, but can you just burn the 2nd card with say Twister OS and it will just recognize the keyboard/screen etc so everything will work with a "desktop type OS"??

[@SeraphX2]

They are all hard to get? I mean, sure you can't get typical Pi for like 3-4 times the cost though. Almost might as well buy a laptop.

[@scottwilliams895]

What's up with that big arrow and "Data Card" on the mainboard ?

[@RudiVDS]

Just a question, is this a touchscreen?

[@Link-channel]

Why make a dual boot physical switch when BerryBoot exists?

[@KidYoureAHomo]

Could you fit a Nvidia Shield TV into that??

[@deepsleep7822]

My dislike is the small screen size.

[@ALex-qc4lf]

For the size I am kinda confused it's not lasting longer

[@dimitriid]

It's nice to eventually come back and take a look at this but I am really tired of all these Raspberry Pi projects that just pretend they don't know there just aren't any pi 4s to purchase at reasonable prices: if you want this set up right now you will end up paying as much as a low end x86 laptop with a decent Celeron chip for example so why bother? Sorry no fault of you for just looking at products send your way by the way I am just really apathetic at the lack of raspberry pi models for sale.

[@mavfan1]

They're not pretending anything. These projects can take a couple of years to come to fruition and anyone who says they knew there'd be a Raspberry Pi shortage in mid 2022 two years ago is a liar. Even as things changed in 2021 is a company supposed to abandon their project because a shortage may continue? Of course not. Plus what about all of the people that already had one?

[@dimitriid]

@@mavfan1 Abandon? No. Make a marketing effort? Absolutely they need to stop. Remember this is marketing: they send review samples as advertising for their product, a product they know that nobody can't utilize. Betting on the pi was a bad bet to begin so I have no sympathy for people doing peripherals for it that are taking a downturn: they should take their issues to the raspberry pi foundation they're the ones that can't handle the demand we as consumers have nothing to do with it but shouldn't be bothered with useless products in the meantime.

[@ReenoMoon]

why is the battery life so short? I want 30+

[@zweiwing4435]

I can put Orange Pi or any others Pi ?

[@piterkristianto5647]

what OS that you use?

[@DouglasWalrath]

they could get it thinner if they used a compute module

[@mohdnormohdaminnullah4064]

Why this over a chromebook?

[@x240strongx]

How does RuneScape 3 run on it 🤔