DIYr’s rejoice as the new Raspberry Pi the Pi 4 has been released, so what does the upgrade bring for us DIY’rs, let’s check it out.
The Raspberry Pi is a clever little device, which have been a goto for most do it yourself enthusiasts, a computer the size of a box of visiting cards (well almost) it provided flexibility to think up of projects previously unthinkable.
As with most technology, with every generation comes new updates, new features. The pi 3 model b which I reviewed earlier was quite a capable device, but its processing power for more computational tasks was ok, but still we craved for more.
So, the raspberry pi 4 comes in with a new processor a Broadcom CM2711 Quad Core cortex – A72 (ARM V8) 64 bit Soc at 1.5 ghz. Performance wise it’s supposed to be 3 time the
Gigabit ethernet, Wifi with support for a.c, and the piece de resistance 60 fps 4k output.
“What??”
Yes, you heard right and the raspberry pi4 supports dual display with two micro hdmi ports, but yes, if both are active at the same time, we get only 30 fps per display but still at 4K.
The older Pi could not sustain playback of even 1080p video, have to check if the 4k is only for more screen real estate or actual video playback support.
To power the device it has a USB-C port which can supply it’s 7.6 watts craving for power.
Performance wise with the updated processor the Pi 4 smokes its earlier variants. We get three RAM variants 1GB, 2GB and 4GB to keep the cheapest board at $35 $45 for 2GB and the 4Gb variant available at $55 which is quite a lot of tech at that price. In india the pi4 costs approximately Rs 1000 more.
Two USB 3 ports, and 2 USB 2 ports take care of connectivity, gigabit ethernet allows for faster data transfer. The shared ethernet / USB bottleneck that plagued the earlier Pi 3 B+ is now not one in the Pi4 which allows for max throughput.
If you are planning on any new DIY projects and are on the lookout for an affordable maker board the Pi4 looks like a great option. I will try to get one for myself and try to port my earlier projects onto this. The pi4 runs on a newer version of Raspbian so not sure if moving the sd-card as is will work.
