In November 2020, Raspberry Pi disrupted its established line of single-board computers (or SBCs for short) with the release of the Raspberry Pi 400, essentially a more user-friendly version of the Raspberry Pi 4 SBC that the company released over a year earlier. Instead of being a bare board intended mainly for use by dedicated tinkerers, the Pi 400 came prebuilt in a case with a keyboard built into it as well as a microSD card with Raspberry Pi OS pre-installed. It still needed a power supply, HDMI cable, and a mouse, but aside from the lack of a power supply, you can say the same thing about the stock version of Apple's Mac Mini.

Now, in December 2024, 14-plus months after the release of the Raspberry Pi 5, the Pi 400 has gotten a follow-up, the Raspberry Pi 500, which was announced on December 9. As its predecessor was to the Raspberry Pi 4, the Raspberry Pi 500 is to the Raspberry Pi 5, the same board thrown in a cute little keyboard case. There are other differences, though, like the addition of a heatsink, which had to happen given the Pi 5's beefier CPU. If you want, you can spend an extra $30, for a total of $120, to get a kit that includes the USB Type-C power supply, HDMI cable, and mouse. In addition, the Pi 500 was announced alongside another new product, the 15.6-inch Raspberry Pi Monitor. Let's take a look at some of the more attractive features of the Raspberry Pi 500.