Raspberry Pi 400 Evaluation

After unboxing, and after do many tests with our Raspberry Pi 400, we bring this evaluation video, talking about the test results.

Spanish audio. Subtitles in Spanish and English.
Music by Internia.

Hello! Canal Virtus Dante here with you again. At last, at last, at last I can record the video about the evaluation of the Raspberry Pi 400, the so-called Raspberry personal computer.

Well, do you remember that it was an all-inclusive device in the keyboard, it reminds of computers from the 80s, my dear spectrum, although I already had it in 96, a little late, but good.

This format is very interesting, because in a very small size it brings us everything, we just have to connect it to the monitor, to the power supply, in this case I also have the wired mouse on that came with the kit, and we started talking a little bit ... The format. The format, first the design. I love the design, I said it in the unboxing video, you remember, the design love it, the colors are gorgeous, the buttons are so trendy. I like mechanics better, a mechanical keyboard, but hey, for this type of device we want it to be agile and manageable this is great. It has its LEDs to indicate activity, we are especially interested in the LED On, although I will tell you one thing, and that is that you have two options to configure it: one is that can be left fixed, on fixed, when it is working, which is as it is by default the option, and the other is that when you have read / write activity on the SD card it flashes.

This interests us more, I would set it to blink, that way, if we ever got stuck hanging or whatever, we can see if it is blinking or not, and if it is not blinking then it is safer to yank the cable out of power to reset it. If the case was seen.

We see the ports, you remember, here we have a wired network connection, it does not make me missing because in this case it is connected to wifi, three USB ports, one is busy with the mouse, two mini HDMI outputs, the power input, here I have the SD card where is it the operating system, which does the hard drive functions, say, and the GPIO port. One thing, one thing people ask me: how come it only has three ports? It is a disadvantage against to the 4 USB ports 2 version 2 and 2 version 3, which we found in the normal Raspberry Pi 4 and in the 3. Well, the truth is that there is here, the 400, it also has 4 ports, what happens is that one of them is internally occupied by the keyboard. If I wanted to connect a keyboard to this Raspberry Pi 4, it would have to occupy one port, I would have three left, which are the three that I have here. Another important thing is that in the Raspberry Pi 400 we have lost the jack, the headphone jack, we had it on the Pi 3 and on the Pi 4 to connect headphones, a mini jack, and in this format we do not have it, the sound goes through the mini HDMI to the monitor, but in the event that we have an old monitor well ... it will not work for us, it will not work for us ...

Correction: Yes, it is valid with an HDMI> VGA adapter that incorporates a jack And another thing we lose is the port for the native Raspberry camera. Is there a camera Raspeberry special that has a special connector, a port, connects by a cable to an internal port of the Raspberry Pi, in this case we do have it accessible, there it is, and in the Pi 400 that port I don't really know if it is inside, but certainly within our reach It is not there, I am not going to disassemble it to find out or to connect it or anything. What am i losing with that? Well, there are some functions that I can do with the native Raspberry camera that I could not do with the alternative of plugging in a USB camera. I can plug a webcam perfectly by USB to the Raspberry Pi 400, but there are functions at the time of, for example, those taught in the guide, to work with the camera, which I will not be able to use. I also comment, this is nonsense mine, the theme of the arrows, of the little arrow buttons, this is a design, it is not my own or unique of this keyboard, but we can find it in any keyboard like this of these dimensions, of this type, well we are going to see it a lot, it is very nice, I think this was started by Apple to make this type of arrow design, but I will show you in photos how I would like more, because here the up and down are mishandled, huh. I want to show you that the dimensions of the keyboard, although it seems, it is not so small, because if we compare it for example with this mine, this wonder, Well, you see that the part of what is the keys occupies the same the main keys, so the size of the keyboard It is not a mini size, they are keys that for me, my fingers are pulling a little too large, I they come in handy, there I have had no problem. The letters on the keys are stickers, they look pretty good quality, but that until long enough we won't know how long these stickers will last here.

Well, let's also talk a little bit about the technical specifications of the Raspberry Pi 400.

We found that it has a 64-bit processor and with four cores, which is very appreciated, and the RAM it comes with is 4 gigabytes. This is where I have a little doubt, because We can find the Raspberry Pi 4 with 2 gigabytes, with 4 gigabytes, and even with 8 gigabytes, hence the He asks why the Raspberry Pi 400, who want to present it to us as a personal computer, They have not taken it directly with the format, with the inclusion of the 8 gigs of RAM? Because of course 8 better than 4 (and 16 better than 8, if we put ourselves), but, put to launch a product like that, with a with a Fixed RAM why choose 4 instead of 8? I imagine that for the price, cost reduction which also translates into a price reduction for the end customer. But the end customer ... I in my In case I would have paid a little more to have those 8 gigs of RAM. Technically I don't love myself I do not want to tell much more, the specifications the important thing is that: know that it is 64 bits, quad core, quad-core, maybe, maybe it would be interesting in the future to see an octa core, 8 cores, and see how behaves, it would undoubtedly be better in performance because now later we will see the tests I have been doing performance, in some things no, no, it does not satisfy them at all. We have to bear in always keep in mind what it is, it is not a modern PC that has power for anything, it is for what it is, it will allow us to work, it will allow us to do our homework, it will to allow learning many things ... but we could wait a little longer, have a little more agility, Above all, agility is what we want when working with this device. Well, and we passed to performance. To begin with, I want to talk about the operating system, because when you buy the Raspberry Pi 400, either loose or with the kit as I did, it comes with a 16 Gb SD card with Raspbian pre-installed. However, the Raspberry Imager tool allows you to create cards with Raspbian or with Ubuntu, an edition of Ubuntu specially designed for the Raspberry.

This Ubuntu is very beautiful, I have tried it, I have installed it, I wanted to try it, it is very beautiful, it is more attractive than the Raspbian, and it has more things, the community brings more things, but I have to say that the performance is not what one would like, in Ubuntu everything really goes a little slower than when I have tried it with the Raspbian, so for now Ubuntu discarded to use it with the Raspberry Pi 400. Maybe when we have those 8 gigs of RAM and he chooses core it will go better, for now: Raspbian. One thing to keep in mind whenever we are going to install something on our linux either Raspbian or Ubunto on the Raspberry Pi, is that the architecture, the architecture of the Raspberry Pi It is ARM, it is not a 486 like a classic personal computer, what does this mean? what to Sometimes we find, when we enter the web page of an application, which has a version for linux, sometimes we can download it directly, an .app file that we would run in a normal linux running on a 486, but on the Raspberry we can't do it. Those files normally they are compiled for a 486 and they will not work in the ARM architecture, it will be Therefore, it is necessary to install these programs from the package manager, our line of commands, you have to learn a little but it is very convenient to learn, always. Well about performance, a bit overall. Navigate, I navigate well. Youtube I see it well, it is managed well, they look the videos well, they play well, it is fluid. Google Drive I have tested it, it works fine, although a I am going to tell you: a little bit you always notice the load in general, when I load a document for example from Drive, a spreadsheet, I notice it loading a little slower, I have to wait a little longer that when I use it from my PC, when I load with an online game from the browser, like 1vs1 takes, takes a while to load, I really don't understand why, because the internet speed It is the same when I am connected with the PC as with this, but whatever this is, it loads slower, has fewer fewer resources, and is something to get used to if you go to work with the Raspberry Pi. Once loaded it goes well, the things that I am going to say work well, they work good, but that, in general it takes a little time to load us, everything in general. I have also tried LibreOffice, which has also gone very well for me, I imagine that with spreadsheets we have maybe with 50,000 lines, such as a product catalog, it will take too long, because even on the PC you can see that it takes a little while to load it, but once loaded it works fine.

I have tried Scratch 3, which, man, if Scratch 3 does not go well, then turn off and let's go, it has to work well. We remember it is an environment to program by blocks, without writing code, which We do is to place blocks, the instructions are blocks that we place, we nest one after another.

I have also tried Minecraft, which has done well for me, I have played well in a window, like a window I play well, it goes smoothly, nothing strange is noticeable, but then I connected it to the TV and when in the television turned to full screen, and there it was clear, it was not fluid, and I had the problem that I couldn't get out of full screen, so I had to give the cable a little tug and reboot to the rough. I have tried Audacity, which is something that some of you asked me, the editor of audio, and, except for a little problem that I had at the beginning to configure it, I had to touch an option of configuration, but once done it has worked perfectly. Except when exporting to to an audio file, both mp3 and wav, it does a weird thing to me when I export: the beginning of the file that I export makes me two silences at the beginning, I don't know what it comes from, but it makes me two silences, then I show it to you in the video, which I imagine will be a solvable thing, because I It consists, I have spoken with more people and I know that they use Raspberry, both 4 and 3, and it has worked well, They report that it works well, without problems, that is, it has to be something solvable.

UPDATE: It is not export problem. The audios are exported perfect, it is when reproducing them (with VLC) when it does the silences or micro-cuts.

I have checked this by opening the files on another computer (normal PC).

However, it's a downside, it's a bit ... come on, I don't like it, that you have to come and get prepare various things, to get problems solved, until something that you hope will it works the first time, it turns out that it costs you a little work to do it, okay, it is good, because we learn, I always say it: learn, learn, ... but in order to call it personal computer and dedicate it to an end user, having to prepare a few things to make it work for us Well something, take a little back (a little). I have captured a screen, of course, if not I could not show the videos, I have captured perfect screen, without problem, screen and sound, thanks to the Simple Screen Recorder, which, despite being called simple, the truth is that it is quite, quite useful.

Simple Screen Recorder. Ah, I also had to touch a little thing in settings, huh, and after installing a package, I have to say, but, the same, it actually works, fine but it's not reaching out and kissing the Holy, you always have to do a little bit, navigate a little, see how it is done, find help and see how does, and do it. Edit video. Edit video, you can, I have managed to do it, but at a performance and a speed of work so slow, which is infuriating, and, although it can, it can because it works, it is so frustrating, that edit video fails, edit discarded video. And of course, of course, the emulator.

Game emulator I have tried the RetroPie, Lakka and Recalbox. I liked RetroPie more, and it is with / on which I have made the video clip playing, I have of course played a Mario, Mario 3, those memories we had of when we were young, I will not say small because I was not small, but good. And of course I have tested the PlayStation 1 emulation playing Tekken 3, I love that, I do like it. And, a surprise, the Spectrum emulator with Barbarian, Barbarian, the game That came out after the movie "Conan the barbarian", freaking out, that is true that in his day he fllipated.

Any 10-year-old sees it now and throws it in your face. Sure, after watching Fortnite, all those games that are impressive, there are children with Plays, with Xbox, with I don't know what ...

But back in the day the Barbarian, folks, on the ZX Spectrum, the Barbarian was the reed.

Unfortunately I could not play, because, despite the fact that the game has run, The game was played with a keyboard, and in the time that I have tried it I have not managed to configure a keyboard to play Barbarian. Well, now I want to talk to you, you know that I bought the kit, and I want to talk about something that was coming, and it is the "Official Raspberry Pi Guide". This is one, one of the elements that came in the kit that are really worth it for me, why? first why are we going to find a lot of interesting information about our device. We remember that this is the updated guide, already includes notes regarding the Raspberry Pi 400, that is, what can we do and what we cannot do, because there are things that we cannot do, what I have previously commented on the camera, like this that this is a general guide on Raspberry Pi that already includes the updated information for include as regards the Raspberry Pi 400, but that serves us for any other Raspberry Pi model. And the most interesting, the most interesting to me: this book has 247 pages, of those 247 pages 159, 159 are about programming, and 86 about other things. How can you See, almost the entire book is about programming, programming initiation, because they are initiation things, this is for children, teenagers or anyone who wants to start in programming and computing, and really, really, it's very well explained and it's going to help.

We will find explanations about Scratch, how to work with Scratch, with the block language.

We are also going to learn python, I have python here, a language that modern programmers love it, they like it a lot, because here you can also start with python, with your Raspberry Pi with python make your first steps. We also have a section to control devices electronics from our Raspberry Pi, like LEDs, like buttons, how to react to sensors ...

In the case of the Raspberry Pi 400, through the GPIO port we have back here, they have kept it. On the normal Pi 4, we found it inside, directly on the board.

We also find out how to use the Sense Hat. The Sense Hat is a device that is placed on of the Raspberry Pi, in this case, and in the case of the Raspberry Pi 400 it connects here, in the GPIO, there it goes in perpendicular. And finally, it also teaches us how to interact at the programming level with the camera.

One thing must be said, of course, if we are going to use the Sense Hat, if we are going to use a camera, if we are going to do these kinds of things, very interesting, that I like a lot, because we are going to have to release a a little more money, because we are going to have to buy those other things. And let's go with the conclusions, the conclusions that you can draw, because I say that you can draw them, because I'm going to give you my opinion a bit, but I don't want to say one thing or the other outright, why?

because it depends a lot on what you want it for, the Raspberry Pi 400, and your profile, it depends a lot the one that will serve you or the one that will not. So, for example, if you want to start programming them, you or your little ones, or whoever, to start programming, great, if you can be including the guide, the better. In addition, there is another other resource that you can use, which is code.org where you can find resources to learn to program and learn science from computing completely free of charge. One small drawback is that it is a US site, oriented to everyone, they try to put it in all languages, but you will not find everything translated in Spanish. However, there are very interesting courses that you are going to enjoy. I am registered there as a teacher, and I have no problem, on the contrary, I love to help everyone who asks me. Another purpose that It can serve you, within what we already frame as a personal computer, to do homework, to Doing homework online from home, is it useful? Yes, it works. If we are going to work with text documents, or with spreadsheets, even presentations we can do, either using the tools that we provided by Google Drive or LibreOffice itself. In the same way, it will help us to telework, in the same way using office applications: Writer, Calc ... and if not by Google Drive.

One important thing: if we look at it as a workstation, it is very interesting that with everything that we work is in the cloud, because that way we can not worry about having problems with the SD card, screw it up or something. If we have everything stored in the cloud better, yes we work with cloud applications with Google Drive, it is also very good for us, because for that The cloud was invented, so as not to depend too much on the machine and to have resources that we can use with our terminal. Always another option? Have our pendrive, connect it by USB, and save it our most important work, or make backup copies, or whatever we want. So I tell you, For fun and learning? great, although we will like the matutanos more like I think the little ones, the little ones will have a hard time convincing them to get on with the Raspberry Pi 400 or anything other than a game console. To do homework, to telework, videoconferencing, with Zoom we have tested it, it works, it works, enough, yes, but also An old PC can serve us just as well, and we are not going to go very wrong in price. So, friends, draw our conclusions, put them in the comments, I would very much like to know your opinion, if you think it will work, if not, if you have already purchased it, if you have tried it ... great, you tell me. And, well, apologize for taking so long to post this video, I've had a few days with a lot of work, a lot of fuss and in the end it has been accumulating, delaying ... I have made the effort, in short, I hope you liked it and see you in the next one, see you later!