YOU’LL NEED THIS

RASPBERRY PI 4

We used the 8GB model. You also need an 8GB or greater microSD card, a wired Internet connection, and infinite patience.

THIS IS IT, the real deal. No tricks involving VPNs or virtualization. This is the ARM port of Windows 10 running natively on a Raspberry Pi 4. Slowly. Best of all, it kinda works. Even with an overclocked Pi, however, it’s slow, bringing back memories of running Windows 7 on an Atom-powered netbook. It’s not unusable, but it does come with problems. The main one is that the Pi’s Wi-Fi doesn’t work, so you need a compatible USB adapter or an Ethernet connection. It can be very crashy when you connect to the Internet, unless you follow our genius tip below.

So, you’ve got a wobbly OS on which you can only install a limited number of apps. Perhaps you’ll have better luck with initial stability, or a Windows update will bring the Wi-Fi online.

It’s what this represents, rather than what you can do with it, that’s important. As we said when we reviewed the Pi port of Ubuntu, this makes the diminutive single board a computer you can use every day—the mainstream Raspberry Pi OS tries, but it’s still stuck in 32-bit hell, and the 64-bit version has its issues—even if it is a few updates away from perfection.