Argon ONE Up Laptop Runs on a Raspberry Pi CM5

Last year I reviewed the CrowView Note, a portable monitor with battery, keyboard and trackpad that makes it devilishly easy to use a Raspberry Pi as a laptop — albeit a laptop with a single-board computer sticking out the side!

As much as I love (and continue to use) the CrowView Note—the HDMI input lets you use anything with it, even a phone—it is far from elegant.

Argon Forty, makers of the most well-engineered and popular Raspberry Pi cases (the Argon ONE range), clearly took note and thought: “hold my fruit punch”.

Argon ONE Up Runs on a CM5

The Argon ONE Up is a is a laptop computer powered by a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5. Yup, the CM5, not the full-size Pi SBC.

You remove a panel on the bottom of the laptop, slot in your CM5 (and an M.2 SSD or expansion board, like the AI+ HAT), and bam: a Raspberry Pi-powered laptop. No SBC dangling out the side, and no super-thick chassis to house it internally.

Though this is not modular in the way the Framework line of laptops are (you can replace everything in those), the Compute Module can be swapped out (I’m not sure if alternative boards using the same connector exist, but if so: more choice) so there’s potential.

Here’s a video of the Argon ONE Up in production because, why not:

The Argon ONE UP is going to launch via a Kickstarter campaign sometime soon. No price or battery life details are known, but the aluminium alloy chassis houses:

• 14-inch IPS LCD display (1920×1200)
• 1080p webcam
• Backlit keyboard with multitouch trackpad
• Built-in stereo speakers
• microSD card reader
• M.2 2280 slot (PCIe 2.0 – can run AI HAT)

Ports include:

• 2× USB 3.1 Gen1 (Type-A)
• 2× USB Type-C (PD + Data + OTG)
• HDMI 2.0 (4K@60 Hz output)
• 3.5mm audio jack

There’s also an additional add-on able to connect to the USB Type-C ports to provide an external 40-pin GPIO header, with power button — these folks know their market.

So when can you buy one buy and how much will it cost?

As yet unknown.

Argon’s been teasing an upcoming Kickstarter campaign for a few weeks—it unveiled the ONE Up at a conference earlier this year—and a preview page for the campaign is live¹ (but you can’t back it). Keep an eye there if you’re interested in getting one.

Argon Raspberry Pi products have a good rep in the community, and I’ve no doubt many of you reading will already own some – so shout out your kit in the comments!

1. Fun drinking game: neck fruit punch for every use of the word ‘level’ in the campaign blurb. ︎

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