The
Raspberry Pi 4 was released in June 2019, but I have only just bought my first one. When released, there was a 1GB, 2GB and a 4GB version. The
1GB version has been discontinued for consumer purchase, but in line with the Raspberry Pi Foundation's long term support ideals will be available for commercial purchase while there is still demand.
The board is supplied in a standard cardboard box with a (very brief) quick start and be careful guide.
I forgot to photograph the board before assembling it into its shiny new case. Maybe next time.
I bought my
Raspberry Pi 4 from Pimoroni, and I also bought their
bright and shiny Heatsink case.
Before assembling the board into the case, I installed the latest version of Buster onto an SD card using the
Raspberry Pi Installer. This was then inserted into the board.
It was at this point I realised that I had forgotten two things.
The Raspberry Pi 4 is a lot more power hungry (hence my choice of the heatsink case) and so has moved away from the traditional micro USB power connector to the USB C type connector.
The second is that to make use of the dual 4K screen option, the monitor connection(s) use the Micro-HDMI connector.
There is a dedicated USB-C power supply available, and I probably should have ordered one (there is also a micro USB to USB-C adaptor). However, I ended up buying a 1m USB-C cable from my local supermarket.
The micro-HDMI cable would have been a bigger issue, but it turned out I had one in my cable collection.
Assembly of the case was straightforward. There is a tutorial
here.
The only problem I had was with the thermal conductive pad. When I came to remove the backing sheet, it managed to tear and ended up looking like a blob of blue tack. Luckily there is a spare one which came in handy. So when fitting the thermal conductive pad, be very careful.
Here is the Raspberry Pi securely fitted into its case.
As you can see, the network port and the USB connectors are exposed, not just the sockets. The case will keep fingers away from the delicate components but it does not protect against much else.
There is a slot for the screen out cable, and the camera cable. The power over Ethernet port is also exposed.
The GPIO is available. It is claimed you could just plug a HAT in as normal, but it is recommended that you use a booster header to raise the HAT well clear of the case to prevent any chance of it contacting the case and causing a short.
Side view showing the GPIO pins.
End view showing the USB 3 and USB 2 sockets and the higher speed Ethernet connection.
The other side view, showing the USB-C power socket, two Micro HDMI sockets for dual monitors and the composite/headphone socket.
The other end view showing the micro SD card and the camera connector.
If you have the option, it is well worth having your Raspberry Pi plugged connected via Ethernet. It makes the initial set up so much faster.
The Raspberry Pi 4 require Raspbian Buster or higher. The default behaviour appears to be different to previous builds. Previously, if you started a RaspberryPi up without a monitor, it would (by default) have a (virtual) GUI screen with what looked like VGA resolution. If you were using it with RealVNC to operate it remotely, this would be annoying as the resolution was not compatible with most of the applications etc. With Buster, no GUI screen (virtual or otherwise) is generated. If you plug a monitor in later, you just get a blank screen. This is annoying.
The solution is to set a default screen size (be careful that this screen resolution is actually supported by your monitor.
This can be done via the command line using:
sudo raspi-config
