David Briddock investigates an easy way to transform your Pi into a laptop or desktop
The Raspberry Pi family just keeps growing and growing. Today there’s the Pi Zero, the Pi 1 Model B+ and A+, the Pi Compute Module, the more powerful Pi 2 plus the recently launched and yet more powerful Pi 3 Model B.
But what if you’d like to transform your Pi into a self-contained desktop PC, or even build a portable Pi-powered laptop? One approach would be to buy a collection of Pi accessories and put them all together to create a custom all-in-one computing device. Here’s what you’d need to consider.
Accessorise Your Pi
From a protection point of view a case is pretty much essential. The Pibow brand (pibow.com) has a particularly attractive and colourful design. And the ModMyPi cases (goo.gl/V3780) come in a variety of colour combinations. Some enterprising retailers have Lego-style case kits (goo.gl/AK4gQ) complete with raspberry logo.
As for the screen hooking up to an HDMI monitor or TV works just fine. But it’s not really in the spirit of a self contained system and the cabling can look messy. A better option would be the official 7” Pi Touch Display. It’s a small, high quality piece of kit where the Pi board is mounted directly onto the rear of the display.
Of course, you’ll still need to find a keyboard and mouse. You may already have something suitable from an old PC. If not they aren’t expensive items, nevertheless it still means searching around online websites or in high street stores to find something that you like. If you don’t want to deal with yet more cables, you’ll also have to invest in the more expensive wireless pieces of kit.
However, since the middle of March 2016 thanks to the Pi-Top initiative there’s a visually attractive, cost effective and far more straightforward solution to owning a Pi-powered laptop or desktop.
The Pi-Top Initiative
It all started with an idea. What the Pi really needed, the Pi-Top team thought, was a streamlined purpose-built enclosure. In fact, they wanted to create two self-contained enclosures, a laptop and a desktop.
The team’s search for funding, via the Indiegogo site (goo.gl/52zi6f), was a resounding success. By the time the contribution window closed on the 9th December 2014 it had raised $192,685, over twice the original target.
Initially, the team designed Pi-Top products based around a Raspberry Pi Model B+ board. However, when the Pi 2 appeared it was viewed as a game changer in terms of the Pi-Top concept. With it’s BCM2836 System-on-a-Chip (SoC), a quadcore ARM Cortex-A7 running at 900MHz, the Pi 2 outperformed the Model B+’s 700MHz single-core BCM2835 processor many times over. All of a sudden the team realised a Pi 2 powered Pi-Top had the power and flexibility to become an everyday computing platform.
Today the new Pi 3 makes this scenario seem even more plausible. The Pi 3 comes with a new powerful 1.2GHz Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A53p. In practice this means it’s around 10 times faster than the original Model B and quite a bit faster than the Pi 2. Mobility is also enhanced thanks to the Pi 3’s built-in wi-fi capabilities, which include both 802.11 b/g/n Wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.1 (which supports both Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth Low Energy).
More Than A Case
The Pi-Top product revolves around an injection moulded case, so you can put the whole system together in double quick time. A full set of build instructions is included and importantly there’s no soldering to do.
However, in addition to being a cool and purposeful case the Pi-Top project was designed to enhance the Pi owning experience. In particular the Pi-Top team also developed a number of educational initiatives. In particular there’s an integrated gamified teaching programme, called the Ceed Universe (see image), which follows the new GCSE curriculum.
In the Ceed Universe you’re challenged to collaborate with your friends to build an open world, mine resources and interact with robots. There’s even an in-game nanoprinter that’s used to build essential tools. In the process you’ll learn about hardware construction and software coding, including how to build a fully operational robot.
Online and integrated lesson plans teach Pi-Top owners how to create custom hardware by understanding electronics, designing printed circuit boards (PCBs) and even printing 3D objects. For example, every Pi-Top kit also comes with a set of 3D printing files to fabricate your own Pi-Top case.
The team trialled the educational elements by traveling and teaching hardware innovation lessons to students around the UK. In one instance a group of students at the King Edwards school in Birmingham learnt how to create an LED circuit, write some code using a Pi-Top and go on to control a Pi-powered robot in real-time.
Pi Laptop
Let’s take a look at the laptop product first. Everything is housed inside an injection moulded case. This includes the Pi 3 board itself, a LCD screen, plus a custom hub circuit board, battery, keyboard, trackpad and associated wiring. Bright green and a more subdued dark grey seem to be the initial colour options.
With laptops two of the most important elements are the display and the battery. The screen is a generous 13.3” LCD model with a 1366 x 768 pixel resolution and 262,000 colour support. While it may have a slightly lower resolution than some other 13.3” laptop displays it’s still very usable and helps keep the cost low.
The battery is a 51.8 watt-hour pack, enhanced by software. It should provide around 10-12 hours power. The Pi 3 needs more juice to run than the Pi 2, though, so real-world tests would be helpful. The keyboard options are said to include both EU and US layouts – hopefully there’ll be a UK one too. It’s also fully reprogrammable via the USB interface. The pressure-clickable trackpad has a PalmCheck feature to prevent unwanted mouse activity by differentiating between finger and accidental palm touches.
The core of the Pi-Top is the hub (pi-top.com/#/product), a custom board that connects the power supply, screen, keyboard and trackpad with the Pi board itself via the supplied cables. It also takes care of things like screen brightness, smart power management and other functionality.
Hobbyists will be interested to know there’s room inside for an electronic breadboard and a few other bits and pieces. Connected to the Pi’s GPIO pins this opens the door to any number of electronic projects. Putting all the bits inside the protective case keeps things tidy. More importantly the whole thing is fully portable, which makes it ideal for taking along to your local Raspberry Jam event.
As for price the Pi-Top is on sale for $300, which includes a Raspberry Pi 3, or $270 without the Pi 3.
All-In-One Pi Desktop
Of course, cool as it is, not everybody needs or wants a Pi-powered laptop. However, take away the battery, remodel the case a little and you would appear to have all the ingredients for a neat little all-in-one desktop. At least that’s what the Pi-Top team must have been thinking, because that’s exactly what it did.
Embedded in the vertically oriented case is the same 13.3” screen, though now its viewing angle can be adjusted thanks to a lightweight stand. However, if you prefer the whole thing can be mounted on a wall. This flexibility opens up a number of intriguing possibilities for classrooms.
Once again the case is large enough to accommodate a breadboard and electronic components in addition to the hub and Pi boards. This takes us back to the classic PC era when you could lift the lid off the box and add or update various elements to enhance the computing experience.
The Pi-Top desktop has a price tag of $135 with a Raspberry Pi 3 and only $100 without the Pi. The website suggests deliveries will start in April 2016, which is around a month after the laptop device begins shipping.
Pi-Top OS
To take full control of the educational aspects the Pi-Top comes with its own Linux-based operating system. As you’d expect this ensures full compatibility with the Pi-Top hardware and so also helps guarantee a smooth out-of-the-box experience for newbies. As part of the setup you’ll be invited to sign up for a Pi-Top cloud-based account. This then opens up the Ceed Universe with the teaching materials and lessons we mentioned earlier.
At this point we have to wonder why the official Raspbian Jessie operating system wouldn’t work just as well? After all, there’s masses of Raspbian learning materials already available, much of it highly appropriate to the UK’s computing curriculum.
To be honest, the last thing teachers need is yet another operating system to factor into their lesson plans. Especially when they are already gearing up for the introduction of the BBC Micro Bit, which is designed to supplement the existing Raspberry Pi lesson content.
That said, in its native form the out-of-the-box Raspbian Jessie distribution image is unlikely to work as expected, mainly because of the custom hub board that interconnects the hardware elements. However, it should be a relatively simple task to put together a Pi-Top support Raspbian download with the necessary drivers and other software elements. And the Raspberry Pi Foundation may well include Pi-Top support in a future Raspbian release.
In Conclusion
In an crowded Raspberry Pi accessory marketplace the Pi-Top products certainly stand out as well designed, sturdy, purposeful, value-for-money solutions equally suited to the home or the classroom. The ability to add additional electronics inside the case is definitely a cool feature. After all, how many other laptops or all-in-one desktops can offer this kind of capability?
It’s unclear if the custom OS is the right approach. Maybe educational additions to the official Raspbian Jessie operating system would have been a better choice. And it would be nice to see touch screen capability at some point in the near future.
What do you think about the Pi-Top laptop and desktop products? Are these something you’d consider buying yourself? Do you think they are good value for money? We’d love to know, so get in contact.
Pi-Top Links
Home: pi-top.com
Kit: pi-top.com/#/product
Learning: pi-top.com/#/learn
Blog: blog.pi-top.com
Pi-Top Maker Experience
If you’d like to read about the realworld experience of assembling and using a Pi-Top the popular Maker website has a blog post that goes into all the details (goo.gl/cXYrno).
This blog post covers case assembly, cabling, boot up and setup via the custom dashboard and has a number of helpful construction images.
If you prefer a manual Pi-Top has posted a step-by-step one online at goo.gl/fkNe3V.
Kano Screen Kit
A recently launched alternative to the Pi-Top is the Kano Screen Kit (uk.kano.me/products/screen-kit). The kit comes in a sturdy box and, just like other Kano Raspberry Pi products, everything is clearly labelled. Follow along with the Lego-like assembly instructions and kit construction should only take around 10 minutes, even for the youngest Pi enthusiast.
The screen itself measures 10.1” diagonally and it’s made from Gorilla Glass to protect it from knocks and scrapes. Included in the kit is a strong plastic wedge-shaped frame. This allow the screen to laid down on a table, like a tablet, or placed in an upright position, much like a traditional monitor (see image).
Fixed to the back of the screen is a dedicated driver board, which has a cable connection to the screen control board. The driver board connects to a Raspberry Pi via a conventional HDMI cable. Power is provided through a bespoke microUSB cable, which is also used to power the RaspberryPi.
With the official Raspbian Jessie distribution image the desktop should fill the whole 10.1” display area by default. If this doesn’t happen with other Pi-compatible distros then there are some controls at the back of the screen which can alter the setup if needed.
Running at 1,280 x 800, which equates to 150 pixels per inch (PPI). Early reports suggest the display is bright and clear, and with such a tough case the whole setup ought to take a fair amount of punishment. Something that isn’t true of other similar products. However, on the downside it lacks a dedicated audio output and the screen doesn’t offer touch sensitivity.
Priced at £120 the Kano Screen Kit offers the same kind of value-for-money proposition as the PiTop desktop model. That said the screen is quite a bit smaller than the Pi-Top. Even so we could see it popping up in classrooms and afterschool clubs quite soon.