That charger is an accident waiting to happen. The device looks ok though, I'm not convinced a second hand laptop and a separate pi wouldn't be a better option though.
For real though, you could get a much nicer Chromebook for the same price. Also they should have used a track point instead of that rediculously small touchpad.
Most annoying part...the 12v power supply. Not a voltage covered by USB PD spec, so you can't charge any other device with it (and might brick it if you try) and you can't charge the crow pi with 5v USB or USB PD chargers. Finally, ignore the included microsd prepared with the device; it's configured to pull updates from China and set my region block firewall off really quickly trying to update. Use a fresh copy or rasbian or another OS of choice and choose hdmi_group 2 and hdmi_mode 86 in config.txt to support the odds 1366x768 display.
They say in the manual that it can be powered using other USB PD chargers but admittedly I didn't try this - I'll try it this evening. I definitely wouldn't try charging any other devices with the included power supply though, and I'd be cautious using it around my office/workshop in case somebody else decides to use it. The software updates from China make sense (even if not desired) as they'd need to maintain their own software and they have quite a bit of custom software on the CrowPi-L. Thanks for the tips on the display config if using a fresh install of Raspberry Pi OS.
That 12V USB-C power brick is downright dangerous. They should have just used a different plug type. The CrowPi is primarily meant for kids and they're the least likely to know and watch for voltage mismatches (at least until they learn more electronics with the CrowPi). But even among adults who are careful/wary, a minor oversight by mistakenly grabbing this could result in a fried phone (probably just the charging circuit) or other fried USB-C devices.
What sort of person would waste that much money on a computer kit that looks like a childs toy when you could buy a real, professionally made laptop complete with a warranty for the same money?
Someone learning to code. Hardware specifically. It has an additional kit with tutorials that walk you through examples of coding hardware and you can watch it change the functionality of the kit in real time. I watched an Asian RU-vidr code an led to flash at different speeds and go from green to red etc. Its meant for introduction to coding and applying that to hardware functions. I don’t think anyone would ever buy it as an actual laptop when you can get a laptop off of eBay that blows it out of the water for under 100$
The intention behind something like this is for electronics and programming education, not to be a professional laptop. A proper laptop will obviously have better specs and performance for the price.
@@MichaelKlements ... which can be done with a simple controller/programmator that connects to any machine via USB, without Linux and a mess held together by ribbon cables and magnets.
why does this even exist? there are the compute module 4 now, they are made for this sort of integrated application. This sort of clunky approach and bulky chassis with tons of fragile connectors is just stupid. Use a CM4.
They would definitely be a cleaner solution, but CM4 modules have been unavailable to then general public for over two years now, so designers are holding back on using them.
It's a bit sad to see that it's much cheaper to get an equivalent x86 laptop for that much (if we consider the price of the RP4), but the market for this must be there, especially for tinkerers
CrowPi PSU destoryed my Pi 400. I connected the USB-C plug from CrowPi into my PI 400 and its dead. The cable looks exactly the same as the Pi USB-C Cables.. It never crossed my mind it wouldn't be USB-C standard until I checked the adapter. Not Happy.
for kids/learning OK. Otherwise it's a dumb product. You can get a 15" notebook with a decent Celeron processor 4GB RAM and 128GB emmc SSD for the same price and it'll be much more usable with Linux or Win11
