You knew it had to happen. The embedded device world i gaga over the Raspberry Pi and the gadgets world is gaga over 3D printers. Enter the pi-top. A some assembly required 3D printable laptop enclosure for the Raspberry Pi.
Yes, only boys wanting toys would buy the thing. Typing the scales near $300 retail without a pi puts it well above the low end laptop/netbook price point. This isn’t designed to be a “service” computer, it is designed for student developers to play with.
I would hold off that this is also for professional geeks to prototype on. “Why?” you ask. It is just a laptop screen, not a touch screen. Roughly 90% of all production systems written for a Raspberry pi will be using a touch screen. Most will be developed with C++ and Qt.
If it had a touch screen, despite the dorky plastic colors, it would find its way into the professional development tool box. Integrating a keyboard, touchpad and touchscreen all into your project case would seriously clean up a bunch of cables on the work bench or table top.
This image does disturb me a bit. I understand how it happened, but, it means even less project case appeal. The standard USB ports are all on one side of the card. The micro-USB port shown on the lower edge is used to supply power. In order to have a USB keyboard and touchpad the Pi had to be mounted deep in the case. To me this looks like it would be a real PITA to plug in a thumb drive or connect a network cable (earlier Pi models did not include wifi.)
Of course, maybe by Pi 5 or 6 they will arrange the card with a single standard USB along the edge with the micro-USB and video connections so the pi-top can function more like a project case? Otherwise, I’m guessing people who bought 3D printers and are looking for something to do with them simply don’t care.
In case you do not know what I mean by “project case” it is the smoked plastic case you see around the Raspberry Pi. It also comes with a top so you aren’t touching any of the circuits while working on your project.