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Most laptops on the market are either Windows- or macOS-based, with the Linux-adjacent Chromebook being another option. Raspberry Pis, however, never officially made the leap to becoming part of a common laptop form factor. Some people do make their own custom Raspberry Pi-powered laptops or portable rigs, and you can buy kits like the Kano, Pi-Top, or CrowPi to do the same. But there’s now a prebuilt Raspberry Pi-based laptop on the market: the Argon One Up by Argon 40.
The $600 open-source laptop is powered by an 8GB Raspberry Pi Compute Model 5 (CM5) and includes a 256GB M.2 NVMe SSD. Alternatively, you can pay $450 for a version without those components, if you already have your own CM5 and M.2 NVMe storage. It includes much of everything you’d expect to come with a laptop — a keyboard, a front camera, speakers, and more — but it doesn’t include a compatible 45-watt USB-C power supply. Those aren’t terribly expensive, but given you can find budget laptops that do come with a power supply, that’s one caveat of the One Up.
The good news for tinkerers and open source fans is that the Argon One Up supports all CM5-compatible operating systems, including Raspberry Pi OS, Ubuntu, and various Debian distros. But if you aren’t already familiar with Linux, you’ll need to learn how to set up the computer yourself, as well as the limitations of your chosen OS. Would that be worth it? Well, it depends on what you’re looking for. If you want a plug-and-play solution you can use right out of the box, the Argon One Up probably isn’t for you. But Raspberry Pis are catered to DIY tech enthusiasts, and if that’s something you’re interested in, the laptop is worth looking into. There are tons of creative uses for Raspberry Pis, and you can even run Steam Games on them!
What else does the Argon One Up include?
Let’s take a look at what the Argon One Up includes for the price. If you buy the $600 model with the CM5 and storage, you get a decent prebuilt machine. The laptop comes equipped with a 14-inch 1920×1080 HD IPS display with a 60Hz refresh rate, a 2-megapixel front camera, dual microphones, stereo speakers, a decently sized 55Wh 4,800mAh lithium-polymer battery, and even a 40-pin GPIO module to facilitate tinkering and DIY projects. It also supports Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0. You also get a built-in cooling fan, a backlit keyboard, and several inputs: two USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, two USB-C ports with PD and OTG support, and an HDMI 2.0 port.
If you opt to supply your own Raspberry Pi, you can choose between a few different RAM size variants for the CM5, including 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, and even 16GB. You can also choose a CM5 with no onboard eMMC storage, but otherwise, you can get up to 64GB of storage built into the machine through your CM5, which is powered by a quad-core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A76 processor that runs at 2.4GHz.
The end product is a low-profile, lightweight, open-source laptop that you can configure however you please, without the limitations of proprietary hardware or software. The chassis is made entirely out of aluminum, so it’s durable — not made of 3D-printed plastic or anything. It’s a great laptop for those interested in Raspberry Pi, Linux, and DIY tech in general. The freedom to choose and install your ARM-based OS of choice is a huge plus, especially if you’re trying to get away from data harvesting and the influence of big tech.
How does the $600 cost compare to alternatives?
At the time of writing, the Raspberry Pi CM5 with 8GB of RAM and no eMMC costs $170, and a compatible Raspberry Pi-brand 2230 form factor M.2 NVMe 256GB SSD costs $75. That’s $245 for those two parts alone. So, essentially, you’re paying $355 for the rest of the assembly, including the display, the keyboard, the recording devices, and everything else bundled into the machine. But you’ll also have to tinker with the laptop, and unless you’ve got prior experience, you’ll also need to learn how to set up a compatible operating system and learn some Pi-apps — or the ins and outs of Linux, if you go that route.
If you’re just looking for basic functionality, you can buy budget Windows machines or Chromebooks that cost between $200 and $300 and work right out of the box. Let’s not forget about the new MacBook Neo, either, which is likely to become a viable Chromebook alternative for many. Ultimately, given the range of attractive alternatives in the current market, the One Up isn’t worth it at the moment.
Still, there’s something to be said for the laptop’s sleek and DIY-purposed design, as well as the fact that Argon 40 has positioned the Raspberry Pi as an official contender in the world of consumer-grade laptops. Many of the same tips beginners should know about the standalone Raspberry Pi will also apply to this laptop, so there’s some crossover if you have any Raspberry Pi experience. If you do opt for the One Up, just remember to grab a 45W power supply if you don’t already have one.
