About this time last month the Raspberry Pi 500+ was released, I was a little disappointed as I had just upgraded from the Pi 400 to the Pi 500 a few months prior.
I was already feeling a little “upgrade remorse” as I didn’t see a big jump in performance and now there is a 500+, don’t get me wrong I do think it is really cool, but is it the cool that I need?
I put the below table together and looking at the table, my Pi 500 is perfect.
| Feature | Raspberry Pi 400 | Raspberry Pi 500 | Raspberry Pi 500+ |
| Processor | Quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 @ 1.8GHz | Quad-core ARM Cortex-A76 @ 2.4GHz | Quad-core ARM Cortex-A76 @ 2.4GHz |
| GPU | VideoCore VI @ 500MHz (OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan 1.0) | VideoCore VII @ 800MHz (OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan 1.3) | VideoCore VII @ 800MHz (OpenGL ES 3.1, Vulkan 1.3) |
| RAM | 4GB LPDDR4 | 8GB LPDDR4X | 16GB LPDDR4X |
| Storage | microSD card | microSD card | NVMe SSD (256GB via M.2 slot) |
| Keyboard | Integrated standard keyboard | Integrated standard keyboard | Mechanical keyboard (Gateron KS33 switches) |
| Backlighting | None | None | RGB backlighting |
| USB Ports | 1 × USB 2.0, 2 × USB 3.0 | 1 × USB 2.0, 2 × USB 3.0 | 1 × USB 2.0, 2 × USB 3.0 |
| Networking | Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0 | Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0 | Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Power Supply | 5V 3A via USB-C | 5V 4A via USB-C | 5V 4A via USB-C |
| GPIO Access | 40-pin via breakout | 40-pin via breakout | 40-pin via breakout |
| Form Factor | All-in-one keyboard PC | All-in-one keyboard PC | All-in-one keyboard PC, slightly heavier |
| Use Case | Education, light computing | General desktop, dev work | Multitasking, gaming, heavier dev workloads |
At the beginning of this month the new Raspberry Pi OS Trixie was also released, so I thought let’s update everything firmware and OS.
When it comes to OS upgrade, I normally “trash” the current SD and start fresh, I would recommend backing up your data before doing any of the below steps.
Below is a summary on how to upgrade the OS on the Pi 400 / Pi 500 / Pi 500 + Link to complete steps
- Download the 64-bit Raspberry Pi OS image.
- Flash the image to an SD card using the Raspberry Pi Imager.
- Insert the SD card into your Pi 400 / Pi 500 / Pi 500+
- Boot up your Pi 400 / Pi 500 / Pi 500+ and complete the initial setup.
Let’s update the OS and its dependencies to make sure they are current before we do the firmware updates and reboot to apply any changes. The below commands are run from the Terminal.
- sudo apt update
- sudo apt full-upgrade
- sudo reboot
Now let’s update the firmware. These steps are for the Pi 400 / Pi 500 / Pi 500+. The below commands are run from the Terminal.
First we need to configure the bootloader, this controls how your Pi boots and what hardware features are supported.
- sudo raspi-config (Navigate to > Advanced Options > Bootloader Version)
Now let’s check if there is an update for the EEPROM. An update will normally enable new hardware support, bug fixes, and performance improvements.
- sudo rpi-eeprom-update
If there is an update, you can run the update using the -a switch.
- sudo rpi-eeprom-update -a
For the final update, let’s update the keyboard firmware, this update is only for the Pi 500 / Pi 500+, I found my keyboard more responsive after this update.
- sudo rpi-keyboard-fw-update
Your Pi 400 / Pi 500 / Pi 500+ should now be all updated.
This post was written with ❤️ and ☕️ on a Raspberry Pi 500
The Reboot Diaries 