There was a time when I would have gotten the news about the Raspberry Pi 5 launch much sooner. I’ve always liked the idea of these single board computers, and Raspberry Pi has been and continues to be a standard. The trouble for me is finding a use for them. I have always got a bunch of decaying technology sitting around waiting for a purpose. I decided to look into it for a home theater…

$80 ][ Raspberry Pi 5 8GB

$12 ][ 27w USB-C power adapter

$15 ][ case+active cooler (hsf)

$5? ][ 3' microHDMI to HDMI cable

That takes care of the core device, protection from physical damage and overheating, power, and connecting it to a display.

I'll still need storage - it has an onboard microSDHC card slot but that is still a lot slower and lower capacity than nvme. But $20 could get me started with 64GB.

There's no nvme connector on the Pi 5 itself, but one is supported through a HAT (Hardware Attached on Top) which is a separate board connected by a ribbon cable which mounts neatly on top of the main board, and provides a socket for shorter M-key M.2 nvme devices. Unfortunately, that accessory is not for sale yet and I'm not sure what the cost will be. Then, add the cost of the actual nvme drive too, which varies depending on capacity, but current prices for short nvmes (M.2 2230 and 2242, the sizes officially supported by the HAT) go something like this:

$25 ][ 256 GB

$35 ][ 512 GB

$45 ][ 1 TB

Oh, an external USB3 SSD is also an option, but probably wouldn't perform any better than the SDHC (apart from superior capacity), and certainly isn't a sleek solution, as the pi itself is about the same size as (or smaller than) an external USB SSD, and that's not really my jam.

Audio can go over HDMI, but I also have an external USB sound card, which I hope will be supported by one of the available operating systems if I decide to use that to get sounds to "good" speakers (not the ones built into the TV).

It has WiFi and Bluetooth built in, plus a few extra USB ports so I should have no problem connecting wireless peripherals like keyboard, mouse, game controllers, USB or wireless headphones/headset, etc.

All in all, probably still get the total under $200 investment for an 8 core 8 gb computer the size of a deck of trading cards.

Another hat or break-out peripheral can be added later to expose a PCIe 1x slot which should be interesting to see when someone separately powers and connects a full size GPU to attempt 3D gaming 😅 but the built-in GPU is enough for 2D games and 4-8k 60fps video playback.

All pretty impressive for something so small. I think Pi 5 will really take off as a legit single-board personal computer.

Now I just need

The money