waste of a gpio connector?

that's the whole point for a lot of us, otherwise we'd just use one of the billion other SBCs.

If the requisite is "I need an sbc to jam into a keyboard that has a modern vid-out" there are plenty of small SBCs and massive keyboards.

I think the frustration was probably that it seemed like, to them, many more people would potentially benefit from not having to have a video adapter on the SBC in a keyboard form factor, and an adapter potentially to full-sized pinout on the GPIO headers, than having to have an adapter for video, and the full-sized GPIO pins, since most people are likely not buying the keyboard form factor as a headless device.

> since most people are likely not buying the keyboard form factor as a headless device

A big part of the aim was simply to provide a nearly-all-in-one device for educational computing.

Physical computing is part of the school curriculum in the UK, mainly starting in Key Stage 2 (7-11 year olds, though there's some in Key Stage 1, as well).

This device exists in a very particular market space where for example the CrowPi laptops sell quite well. But it has been made by team of people who are influenced by the BBC Model B and the profound impact it had.

Sure, and I'm not advocating for removing the GPIO, just that it seems like "make the GPIO require an adapter, and allow full-sized video without one" might service more use cases without an adapter, since I propose that more people want to use the Pi 400 with video than want to use it with GPIO.

I'm not saying the latter isn't a significant fraction, I'm just saying I think almost nobody buys the keyboard form factor device not to use the video with it.

The Pi 400 doesn't require an adapter, it requires a micro HDMI cable, but such a cable doesn't take up any more space than a regular HDMI cable. I don't think I've ever seen a monitor with a permanently attached HDMI cable, so what use cases does the micro HDMI preclude?

Aren't the GPIO pins, like, the one thing that differentiates the Pi from any other micro PC?

It's surprising how many folks commenting on this article seem to have no use for GPIO at all and therefore don't see the point of the RPi.

The presence of a GPIO connector in a keyboard format computer is basically the entire point of the Raspberry Pi 400.

You can consider the Pi 400 to be a very particular love letter to the BBC model B, with the GPIO port providing the kind of physical computing access provided by the "Tube" port.

I'm not sure why this got downvoted. HDMI isn't that large, and needing a specialty adapter for an otherwise useful device isn't good. I'd gladly pay the extra $0.30 or whatever for the full size port. Instead I have more future landfill sitting on the shelf - a dedicated weird port to regular HDMI cable. Thanks guys.