CanaKit Raspberry Pi 5 Starter Kit - Turbine Black (128GB Edition) (8GB RAM)

This is a great kit. It has everything you need to get the Pi up and running. The case is my least favorite part, but it’s serviceable. My biggest issue is that it’s glossy, making it a fingerprint magnet. Also, the power button leaves much to be desired. But, it will work until I get a better case. The little fan spins up sometimes, but it’s not super loud. The heat sink is solid and has what looks like nice thermal pads correctly placed to make contact with the chips. The microSD card, reader, power supply and HDMI cables do their job. The Pi itself is great. I have an older Pi, but it’s nowhere near as powerful. I didn’t bother with the included OS, I downloaded Batocera Linux for the Pi 5 and wrote that to the card so I could set up an emulation system. The Pi is powerful enough to run games up to the Dreamcast, which is the most powerful system emulator included in Batocera. Though, it does struggle with some N64 games, but that’s just the nature of N64 emulation. All said and done, this is a nice kit and a decent value for what you get. I follow tech and prices on PC components are skyrocketing, particularly RAM, but storage and other components are also going up. So, getting all of this for $160 wasn’t bad.

Easy to setup. I'm using this as a Homebridge server and was able to assemble and setup within minutes. This is the first Raspberry Pie I've ever setup too.

Everything in the kit is top-notch. Make sure to watch the instruction video. It answered all my questions. Originally I had a RPi3B but it just could not keep up with only a dozen sensors in Home Assistant. But this RPi 5 basically flies, quick response with no hesitation. And plenty of storage.

This Kit packs everything you need to dive straight into advanced projects. With 8GB of RAM and a 128GB card, it runs smoothly even under demanding workloads, while the turbine-style case keeps it cool and quiet. Setup is simple, components feel premium, and performance is noticeably faster than older Pi models. Whether you’re building a media center, server, or coding workstation, this kit offers serious capability in a compact, well-thought-out package.

Kit arrived with a mismatch of components and not as advertised. No assembly instructions or documentation. False advertising. Very disappointing.