Raspberry Pi 500: Setup, What's Different From a Pi 5, and Who It's For

The Raspberry Pi 500 takes the same idea behind the original Pi 400 — a full computer built directly into a keyboard — and rebuilds it on Pi 5 silicon. If you've already worked through this site's Pi 5 NVMe boot or overclocking guides, the 500 will feel immediately familiar under the hood; the interesting part is what changes when that board lives inside a keyboard chassis instead of a bare board on your bench, and where that trade-off actually makes sense for a maker.

What's inside

The Pi 500 runs the same 2.4 GHz quad-core 64-bit Arm Cortex-A76 CPU as a standard Raspberry Pi 5, with cryptography extensions, paired with 8 GB of LPDDR4X-4267 RAM as the single configuration offered — there's no lower-RAM budget option the way there is with the bare Pi 5 board. It ships with a 32 GB Class A2 microSD card in the box, ready to boot Raspberry Pi OS out of the gate.

FeatureRaspberry Pi 500 CPU2.4GHz quad-core Cortex-A76 (same as Pi 5) RAM8GB LPDDR4X-4267 (fixed, one option) USB2× USB 3.0, 1× USB 2.0 Video2× micro HDMI, up to 4Kp60 NetworkingGigabit Ethernet Expansion40-pin GPIO header (accessible at the rear edge) Storage32GB microSD included; supports the same NVMe-via-adapter path as a Pi 5 CoolingIntegrated one-piece aluminum heatsink built into the chassis PriceAround $180 for the unit alone, $200 for the Desktop Kit bundle

The built-in aluminum heatsink is worth calling out specifically: it's a real, substantial heat spreader rather than a token cooling pad, and it's part of why the 500 handles sustained loads reasonably well despite the tight keyboard enclosure — this site's Pi 5 cooling and overclocking guide is still the right reference for understanding thermal throttling behavior, since the underlying chip and its limits are identical.

What's actually different from a bare Pi 5

No expansion room inside the case. A bare Pi 5 board gives you access to the PCIe FFC connector for an NVMe HAT, camera connectors, and display connectors you can wire into custom projects. The 500's chassis is built around the keyboard and doesn't expose these the same way — you get the 40-pin GPIO header at the back, full USB and HDMI, but not the same freedom to stack HATs or add a camera ribbon without opening the case.
Fixed form factor. You can't swap it into a 3D-printed enclosure of your own design the way you would a bare Pi 5 board — it already is the enclosure.
Everything else is genuinely a Pi 5. Same CPU, same RP1 I/O controller, same OS image compatibility, same NVMe boot support through an adapter if you want to move off the microSD card.

Setup

Out of the box setup is the fastest of any Pi this site has covered: connect a monitor via micro HDMI, plug in the included keyboard-computer itself (which is both the input device and the computer), and power it on — the bundled 32GB card is pre-imaged and ready to boot into Raspberry Pi OS's first-run setup wizard. If you'd rather do a fully headless setup identical to a standard Pi (useful if you're deploying several of these, or just prefer not to touch a monitor at all), the same headless SSH-and-WiFi imaging process this site's Pi headless setup guide walks through — flashing a fresh image with Raspberry Pi Imager and pre-configuring SSH, WiFi credentials, and a username via its settings gear icon before the first boot — works identically on the 500's microSD card.

For anyone coming from the 500's predecessor, note that the newer Pi 500+ variant exists as well, with a mechanical keyboard and onboard NVMe storage built in — check which specific model you're setting up, since the two share the "Pi 500" name but differ meaningfully in keyboard feel and built-in storage.

Who it's actually for

The 500 makes the most sense as a genuinely low-friction always-there Linux desktop — a kid's first real computer, a distraction-free coding or writing machine, a permanent kiosk-adjacent workstation, or simply the tidiest possible way to get a full Pi 5 desktop on a monitor without cable clutter from a separate keyboard and board. It's a worse fit than a bare Pi 5 board for anything that needs the GPIO header buried under a HAT stack, a camera module, or a custom enclosure — which describes a meaningful share of the projects this site covers, from home automation hubs to CNC control boxes. If your Pi is destined to live inside a project enclosure of its own, buy the bare board; if you want a Pi that's already a complete, self-contained desktop the moment you plug in a monitor, the 500 is the more convenient — if less flexible — option.

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