“prompt delivery, excelent product, could do with a more advanced user guide to assist with setting up, from the first order sorted out all the configuration”
“Hardware is fine and it’s great to have everything all ready to plug in.
Software not so fine. First boot wanted to update the OS, as you’d expect. Then, on reboot, it got stuck on a screen of text and wouldn't go any further. No desktop, no OS, nothing. Not a good thing for a newbie. I’ve been around long enough to be able to fix things like this, but someone pretty new to the Pi would have likely sent it back. Not a good first experience.
For me, it’s going to take a while to get used to the clicky mechanical keyboard. I’m so used to the Apple keyboard and laptop keyboards that this feels like an alien thing. But I knew that going into this, and I want to embrace the “Pi 500+ Experience”, so no complaints there.
Buying the desktop kit is definitely the way to go. The beginner's guide is readable with excellent colour pictures. Essential for the new Pi user.
I’m not convinced of the quality of the mouse but, if you don’t have one, it serves its purpose.
In summary - a good purchase, if you’re ready and capable to deal with issues like the “broken boot-up” after the initial OS update.”
“Very pleased so far as a new raspberry pi user with this kit. As someone who has used Windows and Apple OS for many years (and Linux only a very little) and with next to no technical or coding background, I struggled a bit to configure an email application (Claws, pre-installed in the machine), but quickly succeeded in setting up Thunderbird, with which I have a little experience, instead.
Really looking forward to exploring the Raspberry Pi and what I can do with it.”
“So far I am very impressed. The delivery was swift and the Raspberry Pi 500+ was easy to set up up put into instant use. In 2026 I plan to relearn progamming (after a 35 year gap) using the enclosed book by Gareth Halfacree.”
“Having bought various Pi boards over the past years, I decided to try a keyboard version instead of having a bare unit with separate keyboard etc. The unit itself feels well built and I find its nice and compact. My only criticism is that the Wi-Fi does not appear to be as strong as the bare boards and the case must be reducing the signal strength. I'm using the kit in the same room in my house as the previous boards and Im finding that I have a poor, to flaky Wi-Fi connection. I rechecked that everything was fine by using a bare P500 and that had a good signal compared to the P500+ which I have now connected to the web etc by hot spotting off a windows 11 computer which is not ideal as I intended to look at doing away with this particular computer to use the P500+ instead. Its early days for me getting used to the P500+, but still looking forward to trying various projects on it. Just a pity about the Wi-Fi for me.”
“The quality feel of this is phenomenal. Official Pi products always tend to be of solid quality, but this really feels like a high quality keyboard to use. It feels like what I would have sitting at my main workstation, plugged into my tower case, yet I can carry the whole computer with me in a laptop bag when I travel.
The operation is of similar level of quality. A solidly functional light desktop. I can work on it, stream on it, many different things. The only problem is deciding what projects to try on it.
The other items with at are, again, the same high quality you expect from the Pi Foundation. Decent wired mouse, good cables. I am looking forward to going through the updated guide book that came with it.
I would recommend this for anyone looking for a portable light desktop unit that feels the 400 or regular 500 can be a bit too light at times.”
