
Pi-Top 4 - KirinDave
https://www.pi-top.com/products/pi-top-4
======
giobox
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
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.

~~~
whywhywhywhy
"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/#smalltalkAndC...](http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/#smalltalkAndChildren)

------
blhack
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.

~~~
mig39
So many of my Raspberry Pi projects end up as a VM in my homelab esxi server,
because they're just easier to manage that way. Pi-Hole, Octo-pi, wee-wx,
virtual radar, etc. All of these I started with a Raspberry PI, then realized
what a pain in the butt it is to manage a PI when I can manage a VM instead.

~~~
giobox
Similar for me, except I just use Docker for container versions of whatever
project I played with on the Pi instead of VMs. Makes simple automated
upgrades possible with extremely few lines of scripting too, ideal for home
server that I want to setup and forget about. I have a single docker-compose
file describing the services I need and its worked great for me for years.
Most Pi server-app projects already have an official x86 docker image too.

If nothing else, this has allowed me to use a cheap intel NUC instead of
beefier hardware for a VM server. No more SD card failures...

------
groovybits
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
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?

~~~
mynameisvlad
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
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-t...](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)

~~~
rm445
I wondered about that as well - but there's a reasonable chance it's just a
sticker on a generic tablet-keyboard combo.

------
ohazi
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.

------
adam0c
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
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
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-
pho...](https://www.pi-top.com/bett-2019-maker-projects/portable-photobooth)

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

~~~
ben509
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.

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rolltiide
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
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

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iamaelephant
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.

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Noxmiles
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
Looks like Hardware peripherals

------
Lowkeyloki
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?

------
pilchardbreath
Here are some independent benchmarks from on the Pi4 performance....
[https://twitter.com/JonMcLoone/status/1146443778972180480](https://twitter.com/JonMcLoone/status/1146443778972180480)

------
stonogo
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
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.

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

------
Robotbeat
What I want is something like a OLPC XO. Rugged, kid-friendly, etc.

No (regular) internet.

~~~
rm445
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
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.

------
pulse7
Any clue about the price? Previous versions were not cheap...

~~~
jandrese
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
> 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
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
> 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.

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mavhc
How much?

~~~
ant6n
What is it?

