DeskPi Pro v2 Review - Turn your Raspberry Pi into a Desktop!

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now let's get started with today's video [Music] i have yet another raspberry pi related review for you guys this week because today in the studio i have the desk pi pro version 2 which is a really cool kit that allows you to turn your raspberry pi into a full desktop computer the despite pro claims to have some pretty serious features here including but not limited to a heatsink with a fan an m2 slot and it's also said to feature safe shutdown as well now before we get started i just want to give you guys a quick note and that is that this particular product was sent to me by the manufacturer but i retain all creative control over this video and all the other videos on my channel so all the opinions that i'm going to give you are my own the manufacturer was not allowed to screen this video review it and this is not a collaborative effort all they did was send it over to me for better or worse and i'm going to give you guys the review so what exactly is the despi pro the despi pro is a case for your raspberry pi that turns it into a desktop but i feel like just simply calling it a case is doing it a disservice because it's a little bit more than that it's much larger than your standard raspberry pi case but it's not too big either if you were to order one for yourself there's actually three variations of the despi pro available the first of which is a bare bones case for those of you that want to transform your existing raspberry pi into a desktop and then there's two variations that actually have a raspberry pi pre-installed and specifically they have a four gigabyte raspberry pi version and another kit featuring the eight gigabyte raspberry pi and it's also very affordable the 4 gig version is 129.99 and the 8 gig version is 169.99 but if you already own a raspberry pi and you just want the case itself then that's going to set you back 59.99 so how much it costs just depends on what you're looking for and whether or not you already have a raspberry pi to use you could save a little bit of money if you use an existing raspberry pi i really like the fact that if you order one of the two variations that includes a raspberry pi they'll pre-install the pi for you so that way you won't have to assemble well anything unless you want to add an ssd which we'll talk about later an interesting side note though is that if you order a pre-installed version they'll still give you the empty box that the raspberry pi itself came in on the amazon page for this product they have an amusing picture there that lets you know that this is normal and not to panic when i unboxed it i felt it was a bit strange that they included the empty pie box but i wasn't too concerned by that speaking of unboxing i'm going to show you guys that process right now alright so here's the desk pie and i can't wait to get this out of the box let's check it out so here we have the dust pie itself and my first impression is that it's very solid it's obviously metal i could tell that it's metal and i love how the ports are exposed on the back that's pretty cool also right here micro sd card and it looks like it's raspy os with the driver just like it says here that's pretty cool also we have this right here which looks like it might be required for the usb ports that's interesting so i believe it goes right here and here we have a usb cable so this looks like it's usb a2 usbc and then of course we have the power brick so i believe all we have to do is plug this in there and we have the complete power cable so now that we have the dust pie out of the box and i've had some time to play around with it it's time to give you guys my thoughts and my first impression is that well this is very solid it just feels really really sturdy there's no flex at all and it's made of a thick metal so it kind of feels industrial which is really nice on the front of the case there's a power button two usb ports and i love the fact that it includes an sd card slot right there on the front which makes it very easy to switch cards since you don't have to reach behind the unit and some cases out there actually force you to disassemble the unit in order to change the sd card so it's very welcome that the sd card slot is right there on the front on the bottom of the case it has rubber feet to help keep it from sliding around and it's a pretty strong grip too in fact the rubber feet are fairly thick so the only conclusion i could come to here is that whoever designed this case they really hated the concept of having something slide around and the desk pi is definitely not going to move on the back of the unit we have access to all the ports but one exception is that one of the usb ports is used as a sort of bridge to the case itself so you won't have access to one of the ports but all the other ports are available and like i mentioned earlier the desk pi itself is quite a bit larger than your average raspberry pi case and i'm showing it here with the argon 1 case for comparison now personally i don't mind the larger size in fact i think i prefer it one of the reasons for that is because the argon 1 case can get quite warm and the dust pie has a lot more room for cooling in fact it has a very neat heat sink which you can see here it almost looks like the type of heatsink that you'd expect to find on a desktop computer so this cooling system really means business another feature that i like about this case is that it has a built-in m2 slot so you can attach an ssd it also allows you to attach a 2.5 inch hard drive as well so if you want to add additional storage to your raspberry pi it's very easy to do so it's important to point out though that the desk pi does not support nvme ssds so keep that in mind if you do end up ordering one the m2 slot is completely optional but it is there if you ever need it in the future and it's definitely a great feature the kit came with a branded sd card which is pretty cool and my understanding is that it's supposed to be a customized image for this case that being said though you can use your own image you don't have to use theirs and they also make the safe shutdown script available to be installed separately so that way if you have your own os set up you can easily use it here with the desk pi and then add that driver and you should be able to use the advanced features now since i received the pre-assembled version i'm not going to show any footage of me putting it together because well i didn't have to but i figured i'd show the process of installing an m2 ssd which means i'm going to have to disassemble it so you guys are going to be able to see the inside of this particular case now there are a ton of screws on this thing but the process of disassembling it is very straightforward to begin the process there's a handful of screws to remove on the bottom and then there's two screws on the front that you can remove with the included allen wrench at that point the insides of the unit slides out exposing the raspberry pi and then the top plate is where the m2 slot is like i mentioned before you can actually install a 2.5 inch hard disk inside but i had an m2 ssd lying around and i decided to install that after you put it all back together and then boot it up you can actually use the included sd card copier to copy the operating system from the sd card to the ssd after you do that you simply shut it down remove the sd card and it'll actually boot right from the ssd that way you can use your raspberry pi without any sd card at all and that's awesome and this is actually the very first time that i ever tried running a raspberry pi from an ssd and it definitely feels a lot faster when compared to the sd card but keep in mind this unit does utilize usb to connect the ssd to the main board so depending on how fast your ssd is usb itself could be a bottleneck although the despi with an ssd won't be as fast as some pcs it definitely seems to respond plenty fast enough for desktop use now the concept of using a raspberry pi as a desktop computer replacement is not a new concept but it is something that is getting more and more popular as time goes on and we now have the raspberry pi 400 as well which is a raspberry pi built into a keyboard which is really awesome that's another option to consider if you're trying to use a raspberry pi as a desktop and the raspberry pi 400 itself is actually cheaper than one of the pre-installed kits for the desk pi pro like i mentioned earlier the desk pi pro starts at 59.99 but that's without a raspberry pi whereas the pi 400 starts at i think around 100 us dollars and that includes well everything and the pi 400 is definitely an awesome solution and i love mine but there are a few downsides of the pi 400 that the despi itself makes up for for example the pi 400 is locked to 4 gigabytes of ram i'm hoping that they release an 8 gigabyte version of the pi 400 at some point but it is what it is also the pi 400 doesn't have an m2 slot so if you want to run an ssd then the desk pi is probably a better solution so it's a bit of a trade-off depending on what's more important for you the pi 400 is going to save desk space since it's built into a keyboard and there's also going to be fewer cables as well but having an m2 slot and a really cool cooling system on the desk pi is definitely a benefit in and of itself on the other hand the despi has better cooling support for the 8 gig raspberry pi and an m2 slot so as far as which one is superior that just depends on well what's important to you now another option is the argon 1 case which i've reviewed on this channel before and it's definitely an awesome case now one downside is that the argon one gets quite warm to the point where it's a bit uncomfortable to touch but you could fix that by just ramping up the fan and then it'll be plenty cool but it'll also be louder now by comparison the dust pie runs a lot cooler with that really awesome heat sink and the bigger case means that it gets more airflow as well so at no point did i feel like i needed to adjust the fan on the desk pi it stayed cool throughout my test now let's talk about the driver for the desk pi pro it allows you to control the fan curves and it's also said to feature safe shutdown as well installing the driver is very easy it's just a matter of downloading a script and running it once you install it you'll be able to customize the fan curves to suit your liking which is pretty neat now the script is supposed to offer safe shutdown but for some reason that didn't work for me if i hold down the power button for just a few seconds power is cut off immediately now this doesn't really bother me so much in my case because if i want to use it as a desktop i could just shut it down from the menu however if you plan on using the desk pi as a set-top box then this might be a major downside for you depending on your configuration i'm sure there's probably a way to get it to work but i wasn't able to figure it out before it was time to record this review let me know in the comments below if you found a solution for this so at this point i think the market is getting a little bit crowded when it comes to cases that allow you to convert your pie into a desktop but that's a good problem to have that means we have choice now i really like this one quite a bit i just love how sturdy it feels i like the bigger size the heat sink it's definitely a premium case and i highly recommend it but at the end of the day just check out all the solutions that are available and just choose whatever you think is going to fit your needs i do recommend this one but we have a lot of competition out there so it's important to keep your eyes open did you go ahead and order one of these let me know in the comments below what your thoughts are and i'll look forward to seeing you guys in the next video which i should have uploaded very soon thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: LearnLinuxTV

Views: 17,601

Keywords: Linux, Review, deskpi, desk pi, raspberry pi, pi, raspberry pi desktop, pi desktop, pi 4 desktop, raspberry pi 4 projects, deskpi pro, raspberry pi 4 desktop, raspberry pi 4, raspberry pi case, desk pi case, ssd raspberry pi 4, pi 4 desktop kit, deskpi pro set-top box, pi 4 desktop pc, raspberry pi 4 case, 52pi case, argon one vs, pi4 desktop, pi 4 desktop case, deskpi pro m.2, deskpi pro review, deskpi pro vs argon one m.2, deskpi pro case, deskpi pro 2

Id: NamRTtMLWxU

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 13 2021