ZitaoTech's Latest Handheld Pops a Raspberry Pi 5 16GB and Optional AI Accelerator in Your Pocket
If storage is more your thing, how about a 512GB SSD — all in a BlackBerry-inspired pocketable handheld form factor?
Pseudonymous HackberryPi creator "ZitaoTech" has shown off another handheld cyberdeck design, this time powered by a Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer — and delivering 16GB of RAM and 512GB of solid-state storage, or an accelerator for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, in a surprisingly compact footprint.
"Main feature: based on Raspberry Pi 5, powered by 2× 18650 batteries, work[s] with SSD [storage] or Hailo-8 AI module, on-board dual speakers (via Bluetooth)," ZitaoTech writes of the handheld, inspired by classic BlackBerry handsets and the personal digital assistants (PDAs) which preceded them. "I'm also developing the CM5 [Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5] version."
Like ZitaoTech's earlier designs, the new "HackberryPi 5," also known as the "HackyPi 5," puts an upcycled BlackBerry keyboard and touchpad below a full-color display — this time a 3.95" square-format touchscreen with a 720×720 resolution.
The rear of the case has a cover for a dual-18650 battery compartment, delivering three to four hours of active use, and a vented cover that hides the heart of the system: a Raspberry Pi 5 with active cooler and M.2 add-on, hosting either a Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) solid-state drive (SSD) or the M.2 version of the Hailo-8 neural accelerator for machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML and AI) workloads.
Use of the full-size Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer does mean that the gadget, while technically pocketable, is pretty chunky — which is why the maker is also working on a separate design that pairs the same display and keyboard with a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5, the computer-on-module (COM) variant built around the same Broadcom BCM2712 system-on-chip. "It's much slimmer," ZitaoTech says of the work-in-progress CM5 variant, "and has two full-size HDMI ports."
More information on the project is available in ZitaoTech's Reddit post; the maker has indicated that a small quantity of units will be for sale on their Tindie store in the near future.