Raspberry Pi 400 (2020) versus MacBook Pro (Retina 13" late 2013)

I have two computing devices with keyboards: one is a Raspberry Pi 400 released in 2000 and which I bought in April of 2022; the other is laptop, my MacBook Pro, released in late 2013 and which I purchased in August of 2014.

The specifications are as follows:

MacBook Pro Retina 13" with 2560-by-1600 resolution at 227 pixels per inch and 2.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache. It has a 256GB SSD and 8GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory. The Intel Iris Graphics support dual display and video mirroring, simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on up to two external displays, both at millions of colors. There is a 720p FaceTime HD camera.

The Raspberry Pi 400 contains the same general specifications as the Raspberry Pi 4 but is tweaked for this new form factor. Thanks to work on the device’s thermal performance, the processor on Pi 400 has an increased clock speed over the base Pi 4. As a result, the Pi 400 has an increased clock rate from 1.5 GHz to 1.8 GHz. Meaning you should get slightly better performance when using this device. Unlike the Pi 4, there is only one variant of the Raspberry Pi 400. You can only get 4GB of memory with this device. Another change with this device is that it only has three USB ports. One is a USB 2.0 port, and the other two are USB 3.0 ports. The rest of the specifications of the device remains the same as the Raspberry Pi 4. You have access to the same GPIO pins, gigabit ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth as the base device.

It's probably not fair to compare the two devices but, as I use each of them daily, I will. In its day, the MacBook Pro was a premium device and it still holds it own. I've installed Linux Mint, replacing the Mac OS, and am quite satisfied with its performance. Mind you, I don't demand much of it nowadays. At most I'd have twenty tabs open in Google Chrome at any one time, sometimes watching YouTube videos or playing music in the YouTubeMusic tab. I may do some editing in Google Docs. The laptop sometimes runs hot and the fan works overtime but only when processor intensive tabs are opened like AirTable. The only hardware problem I have is the camera which ceases to function under Linux. For me this is not a problem but it might be for others who want to use programs like Zoom or the like. The battery of course after all these years is very weak and is rapidly depleted when not connected to an AC power outlet.

The Raspberry Pi 4 performs well enough given that it is a budget device. It could definitely benefit from 8GB of RAM instead of only half that. At times there is a noticeable lag in keyboard response if too many tabs are open in the Chromium browser. The Bluetooth is faulty and I've been unable to connect wireless earphones to the device. This is a problem since for some unknown reason there is no earphone jack. I've created a workaround that I've discussed in an earlier post. The keyboard is far less satisfying than the one of the laptop. The lack of a fully fledged browser like Chrome is annoying but with the Raspberry Pi OS that's what you get. I've tried booting into Linux but things didn't go and again I've described the experience in earlier posts. There's no battery for the Pi, it must be connected to an AC power supply but its form factor makes it very portable. To function, it just needs power and a monitor or TV.

The MacBook Pro model that I have is currently selling for about US$250 on Amazon while the Raspberry Pi 400 Personal Computer Kit is selling for about US$100.

Chromium Problems on Raspberry Pi OS After Update

After updating my Raspberry Pi OS on my Raspberry Pi 4, I now find that YouTube and YouTubeMusic on Chromium both cause the browser to crash. The Chromium browser is a far cry from the Chrome browser. The former has multiple deficiencies and this latest disaster is further proof of this. Firefox has no such problems so I have been using that browser to launch both programs.

The solution however, proved simple enough following a recommendation from an online forum. Simply reinstall Chromium! A logical enough first step in troubleshooting software problems. Overall the Raspberry Pi 4 that I bought earlier in the year is working well enough for what I need to do. I recently purchases an M1 MacBook Pro 14" for my granddaughter who needed a computer for her University studies. I'd much prefer to be using that of course.

Such a computer does not come cheap however, and in terms of value for money, the Pi wins hands down. The Bluetooth still doesn't work but I have my wired earbuds working despite the inexplicable lack of a direct earphone jack (see earlier post).

Raspberry Pi WiFi Problems

Knowing that I’d be travelling to Bali, I naturally brought my laptop with me but decided to also include my Raspberry Pi 400 so that I could test it out using the villa’s television set as a monitor. The set up for WiFi is that you first connect to a local IP address and, once connected, you then log in using the supplied user name and password. This is the same as what happens at Starbucks and McDonalds back in Jakarta.

There was no problem connecting with the laptop via the full fledged Chrome browser that is running under Mint Linux but the Raspberry Pi, running the default operating system, struggled mightily. The problem seems to be with the browsers. I tried both Chromium and Firefox ESR (which is not the full-fledged version of the browser) and each had problems with security. What should happen is that a login screen pops up and you can enter the user name and password. This did happen initially but then the connection dropped and I wasn’t able to get that login screen to come up again.

Setting up my iPhone as a hotspot, I was able to connect the Internet without any problems because all that’s required is the password, there is no intermediate step as with the villa’s WiFi. I’ve tinkered around and there’s no obvious solution: Firefox ESR and Chromium just aren’t keen on connecting to what they see as an insecure Internet connection. I don’t travel much these days and so this is not a deal breaker for me. When I return home to Jakarta, my Raspberry Pi will be working fine again but, for someone who spends a good deal of time on the road and wants to make use of hotel WiFi, this would be a major problem.

Raspberry Pi: Web Browser Woes

The Chromium browser is fast and responsive on the Raspberry Pi. However, it cannot deal with my Google identity which is odd considering that it the base on which the Chrome browser is built. I have subscribed to YouTube Premium and, while I can log into YouTube and YouTube Music, the advertisements still play and my identity is quickly forgotten as I navigate about. Gmail can be accessed briefly until it drops out and I'm asked to confirm my identity yet again.

Other websites are accessed without difficulty but the browser seems incapable of handling my Google credentials. I was so frustrated that I downloaded an alternative browser called Vivaldi. However, I quickly uninstalled it because it was painfully slow in accessing websites or simply timed out. Attempts to install Chrome failed and that's probably a good thing as this browser is resource intensive and would probably end up performing like Vivaldi given that I only have 4GB of RAM. It looks like I'm stuck with the Chromium browser.

There's surprisingly little help online regarding my problem but I've only just begun looking so something may show up ... and just after writing this something did show up! Figure 1 shows the crucial setting.

Figure 1

Under "Other Google services", there is the toggle "Allow Chromium sign-in" with the comment that "By turning this off, you can sign into Google sites like Gmail without signing into Chromium". The toggle is turned OFF now but it was ON by default and that was the source of all my troubles. Chromium is now behaving a Chrome does allowing me to access Gmail, YouTube, YouTube Music etc. without any problems. It was a huge relief to overcome this nagging problem.

Raspberry Pi

I read today that Raspberry Pi had set up its Pixel OS so that it could run under Windows and OS X. Consequently, I downloaded the ISO and ran it successively under VirtualBox. It's certainly lightweight and is very responsive when running in the virtual machine environment. As explained on the Raspberry Pi website:

PIXEL represents our best guess as to what the majority of users are looking for in a desktop environment: a clean, modern user interface; a curated suite of productivity software and programming tools, both free and proprietary; and the Chromium web browser with useful plugins, including Adobe Flash, preinstalled. And all of this is built on top of Debian, providing instant access to thousands of free applications.

Unfortunately, Minecraft and Wolfram Mathematica are missing because the licensing agreement only applies to the OS running on a physical Raspberry Pi. No matter, it's still good to be able to experience and work with the software in a virtual environment.