Summary
- Argon40’s Argon ONE UP is a Raspberry Pi-powered laptop with upgradeable components, including processor and memory.
- The device features a durable aluminum chassis, 14-inch IPS display, backlit keyboard, and various I/O ports for connectivity.
- The laptop supports third-party compute modules with the same form factor, making it versatile for developers on the go.
Raspberry Pis are everywhere. And they are often used as everyday computers as well. This laptop is powered by a Raspberry Pi—and it’s cooler than you think.
Argon40, a company known for its cases for Raspberry Pi computers, is expanding its product line with a new device, the Argon ONE UP, which is actually a full-fledged laptop powered by a Raspberry Pi 5 Compute Module (CM5). The central concept of the Argon ONE UP is its upgradeability. While most laptops have soldered processors, this device allows you to choose and replace the entire system-on-a-module. All Raspberry Pi CM5 variants feature the BCM2712 quad-core ARM Cortex-A76 processor, but you can select modules with 2GB to 16GB of RAM. Options also include up to 64GB of onboard eMMC storage and integrated Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0.
What’s more, if newer Raspberry Pi Compute Modules maintain the same form factor (which will probably be the case), upgrading the laptop’s core processing power and memory is just a simple swap—remove the old PCB, screw the new one in, just like that. You could even use third-party compute modules with different processors if they’re the same form factor, offering even greater flexibility. Accessing the CM5 and the M.2 storage slot is straightforward—all you need to do is remove a few screws on the bottom panel.
The laptop chassis itself is built from a durable aluminum alloy, sports a 14-inch, 1920 x 1200 pixel IPS display, a backlit keyboard, and a multitouch trackpad. For storage, it includes an M.2 2280 slot that supports user-replaceable PCIe 2.0 x1 SSDs. And for I/O, we have two USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports, a USB 2.0 Type-A, a couple of USB 2.0 Type-C, another USB-C for charging, an HDMI port, a microSD card reader (neat) and a 3.5mm audio jack. There is a clever add-on that utilizes the two USB 2.0 Type-C ports to provide an external 40-pin GPIO header. This gives developers the same kind of hardware-level access found on standard Raspberry Pi boards, making the Argon ONE UP pretty neat for continuing to develop electronic projects on the go. The header can seemingly draw a consistent 5 watts, so Argon40 also included a dedicated power button on the module to disable it when not in use.
Related
This Raspberry Pi Can Survive in Cold Conditions
For all kinds of embedded applications.
The Argon ONE UP is set to launch soon through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign. While a preview page is live (and the actual crowdfunding part should go live soon), critical details such as the final price and expected battery life have not yet been announced, but we’ll probably know more whenever the Kickstarter campaign is actually live.
Source: Liliputing
