Sun. Oct 26th, 2025

The Argon One Up is a crowdfunded, open-source Raspberry Pi laptop built around the Compute Module 5 (CM5). Developed by Argon Forty, it features a premium aluminum chassis, a 14-inch 1920×1200 IPS display, a backlit keyboard, a precision touchpad, and a webcam with a privacy shutter. It also includes a built-in GPIO breakout, making it suitable for hardware prototyping and development—all within a portable, Pi-powered laptop form factor.

Designed for developers, makers, and Raspberry Pi enthusiasts, the Argon One Up brings true portability and modularity to the Pi ecosystem. Users can upgrade the system by swapping different CM5 modules (Lite or full versions) and M.2 NVMe SSDs, offering flexibility in both performance and storage. This makes it one of the most complete and customizable Raspberry Pi laptop solutions available today.

Argon One Up Raspberry Pi laptop

Argon One Up Raspberry Pi laptop specifications:

Under the hood is the quad‑core ARM Cortex‑A76 Broadcom BCM2712 found in the Compute Module 5. The chassis supports M.2 PCIe‑based 2242/2260/2280 SSDs, dual USB‑C ports that connect to an optional GPIO breakout module, full-size HDMI 2.0, two USB 3.1 Type‑A ports, microSD slot, audio jack, webcam, Wi‑Fi 5/Bluetooth 5 (via CM5), active cooling (fan) plus aluminum case for passive dissipation, and a 55.2 Wh battery charged via 45 W USB‑C.

GPIO Access in a Laptop Form

It ships with Raspberry Pi OS, along with a custom Argon40 script (Python/Bash) to manage battery levels, thermal data and system monitoring. While this adds helpful laptop telemetry, reviewers note that OS‑level integration is limited and battery statistics are more polished under Raspberry Pi OS than third-party versions like Ubuntu 25.04, which may lack GUI battery indicators without a terminal.

Argon ONE UP CM5 Laptop

Argon 40 has launched the ONE UP on Kickstarter with a $1,580 goal, already been surpassed. Early bird pricing starts at $331 for the Laptop Shell with a 40-PIN GPIO module (CM5 not included). The Core version is priced at $401, offering a CM5 Lite (8GB RAM), wireless module, and 256GB NVMe SSD. Shipping fees are undisclosed, with deliveries expected in October 2025.

Images used courtesy of Kickstarter.

By Sayantan Nandy

I’m Sayantan Nandy, an electronics content writer and engineer with over four years of industry experience. I’ve worked with embedded systems, open-source hardware, and power electronics. My hands-on projects include work with ESP32, RISC-V chips, SoCs, and SBCs, along with designing power supplies, IGBT-based drives, and PCBs.

2 thoughts on “Argon One Up 14-Inch Modular Raspberry Pi CM5 Laptop on Kickstarter”
    1. I’m not sure about the Argon One Up specifically, as the company hasn’t mentioned Windows support.
      However, Raspberry Pi boards generally don’t run the full desktop version of Windows. They can run Windows 10/11 IoT Core (which is limited) or unofficial ports of Windows on ARM, but performance is not on par with a standard PC.

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