Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

ruin wrote

Stupid question from someone who’s totally tech illiterate...

What else does this computer need to run besides a display of some sort? Software?

Need to pick up another machine for kids homeschool and didn’t know if this would work. We’ve got a very very old mac laptop that well use until it breaks, I have zero interest in tech, but a couple of our kids do and this seems a good option that they could mess around with to learn coding I assume?

4

masque wrote (edited )

Hardware-wise, you need a power supply, mouse, monitor, and a micro-HDMI to regular HDMI cable in order to connect to the monitor. It looks like all of these (except the monitor) come with the "full kit" but not the "basic kit."

Software-wise, you need an operating system. It looks like an SD card with the free (Linux based) Raspberry Pi OS already installed comes with the "full kit" as well.

As a teaching tool, the advantages of a regular Raspberry Pi are that a) it's cheap, and b) it's easy to attach additional electronics (sensors, stepper motors, etc.) for interesting electronics/robotics-adjacent projects (e.g. automatic plant watering or what have you). This computer-in-a-keyboard version does not seem like it would be good for those sorts of electronics projects, so basically the only advantage is that it's cheap (and portable, maybe?). But the flip side of that is that it's not going to be great as a general-purpose computer (less memory, less storage, etc.).

If you're looking for a computer that can be used for both learning to code and general school stuff, you'll be better off with a regular laptop (if there's room for it in the budget). No matter what computer you get, basically all the software that you could possibly want for learning to code is free & open source.

Contrary to what some people expect, coding is not very resource intensive at all (unless you're doing machine learning, fancy 3D graphics, certain forms of scientific computing, etc.). Any computer can do it. It's the other things that your kids might want to do with the computer (e.g. streaming video, gaming, rendering video, etc.) that you should consider when choosing what to buy.

I'd recommend getting a cheap non-mac laptop, and then challenging your kids to figure out how to install Ubuntu (or another version of Linux) on it. Or you can just stick with Windows if you & your kids aren't interested in the extra hassle of figuring out Linux.

4

ruin wrote

Thanks! This is very helpful.

Our kids don’t use the computer for anything but school so we don’t need anything special, but I don’t see the point in this thing either.

I may see if I can bum an old laptop and let the kids play with installing ubuntu. If I do it soon it will definitely save some cash because my wife will just get a mac other wise. She’s our in house IT, accountant and educator for the most part so I back her decisions 100% in tech matters.

Macs have been so easy and trouble free that for our needs which are basically school and bills and the odd movie it’s a decent compromise. In the seven years we’ve had our mac laptop we’ve had one personal windows based laptop and I’ve had multiple for work and they’ve all been one issue after another with software and hardware.

Thanks again!

3

mofongo wrote

I too believe an used pc would be best for the kids school. You can get old flagships for cheap on ebay.

The thing with windows laptops is if you want quality hardware you need to be willing to spend as much as you would in a mac. You can even get more power and quality for less in comparison to macs. Take for example the Dell Latitude line and the Microsoft Surface laptops, they'll last years but may be a bit more than your use case.

5

ruin wrote

Yeah, I’m thinking I might try to get a very very cheap laptop but for school another mac makes sense.

We have four kids at all different grade levels so being able to have the software and online credentials easily shared between two mac laptops and the ipad is worth something.

3

masque wrote

Macs have been so easy and trouble free that for our needs which are basically school and bills and the odd movie it’s a decent compromise. In the seven years we’ve had our mac laptop we’ve had one personal windows based laptop and I’ve had multiple for work and they’ve all been one issue after another with software and hardware.

Yeah, I definitely prefer macOS over Windows for ease of use. My main OS is Linux Mint, but Linux does occasionally require a certain level of comfort with troubleshooting weird OS problems. If you're willing to pay the excessive-as-far-as-the-hardware-is-concerned Apple prices, then a mac is a reasonable choice.

4

NoPotatoes wrote

This computer-in-a-keyboard version does not seem like it would be good for those sorts of electronics projects

Pretty sure the gpio pins are exposed on this offering. The extensibility should be the same as for a regular RPI.

2

masque wrote (edited )

I saw the GPIO pins, but it still seems like a very weird form factor for most projects. Do you really want to create an automatic watering system where the controller is also a keyboard?

Even if you're just using it as a Kodi media player (a pretty common use for a Pi), it still doesn't make sense because presumably you want the Pi over next to your TV, to be controlled via some sort of remote or wireless keyboard from the couch. So making the Pi keyboard-shaped doesn't accomplish much.

3

mima wrote

You don't need a mouse if you're just going to use the console. Heck, you can even try mouse-less while using GUI software, but you're obviously limited on what you can do in most cases.

2

NoPotatoes wrote

Some people have criticized this offering because keyboards are very personal devices, and building the computer into the keyboard could create extra ewaste if the computer or keyboard needs to be replaced.

You could probably get the same experience by attaching a single board computer to the back of a monitor and using an external mouse and keyboard.

3