I have waited a little time since the release of the Raspberry Pi 4. Since I haven’t heard of any major bugs, I got one. The Pi 4 has several major changes and improvements. One major improvement is the amount of RAM. The Pi 4 can be bought with 1, 2, or 4 Gigs of RAM. I choose the 4 Gig version since it will be mainly used for Amateur Radio.
The Raspberry Pi 4 B has the same footprint; but, the connectors have changed. The change in the connectors causes many cases to be incompatible with the Pi 4. The power connector is now a USB-C connector. USB-C is capable of 3 amps and is needed for the new CPU and GPU. The USB-C is reversible and can not be plugged in backwards.
With the upgraded GPU, the Raspberry Pi 4 is capable of dual 4K resolution @ 30fps. I have not fully tested the Pi 4; but, I have read reports that there is still some work to be done to Raspian to properly display dual screens at 4K.
Another improvement is the addition of 2 USB 3.0 ports. Since the network adapter is part of the USB controller it was also upgraded. It is now capable of a true Gigabit connection.
The Raspberry Pi runs warmer than the previous versions. To help dissipate heat, fans and heat sinks were installed. This addition made a big difference. In the future the Pi 4 will be over clocked so more cooling may be added.
In our next post, we will install Raspian and start to prepare our Raspberry Pi 4 B for use with Amateur Radio.
Loading Raspbian on the Raspberry Pi 4 B
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