DIY Raspberry Pi Laptop Features Clean Styling

We see lots of custom portable computers and those usually come from the cyberdeck community. The best of the best look good, but it is rare to see something with the kind of clean styling that we associate with today's consumer products. Part of the reason for that is the cyberpunk aesthetic popular in the cyberdeck community — the entire hobby is rooted in cyberpunk fiction, after all. The other reason is that clean design is hard to pull off and even harder to fabricate. But Pavlo Khmel managed it when he built this Raspberry Pi laptop.

Despite fitting many of the criteria, we wouldn't call this a cyberdeck. The hardware may be similar, but the aesthetic is pretty much the exact opposite of cyberpunk. If it weren't for the very thick base, most people would think this was just a laptop from Apple. The body is white with as few features as possible. The only flourishes are yellow accent keys on the keyboard, large speaker grill slots on the front, and a red volume knob. The entire body was 3D-printed and those files are available on Printables.

The base had to be thick to fit all the components, though there is quite a bit of empty space. Khmel used a combination of new hardware and salvaged parts. The heart of the build is a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer. Several of the parts came from a broken Dell laptop, including the LCD screen, bezel webcam, and microphone. That microphone connects to the Raspberry Pi SBC through a Raspberry Pi Pico development board so it appears as a standard USB device. Audio pumps out through a stereo amplifier board with the volume knob positioned so that it is accessible on the front of the laptop. Power comes from a pair of large battery power banks.

The keyboard is a 60% mechanical model, which provides a much better tactile feel than what you'd get from a typical laptop. The touchpad is an Apple Magic Trackpad. That is a lot larger than most laptop touchpads, but it fit with the keyboard positioned all the way back towards the screen.

Khmel's finished product appears to be a very usable and stylish laptop.