Raspberry Pi 4B 32GB SD 8GB RAM - good value for money?

w00519773

I am thinking about buying a Raspberry Pi 4B 32GB SD 8GB RAM and specifically this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/LABISTS-Raspberry-Starter-Preinstalled-Designed/dp/B08CKMYXC7/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=raspberry+pi+4b+8gb&qid=1621790120&sr=8-3.  I believe this is a top of the range Pi.  I am trying to figure out if the price tag is worth it (£144.99 - currently reduced to £123.24).  I am trying to workout if this price is reasonable.  The reason I ask is because an online course I have recently completed tells me to spend about $35 (£24.85).  Is this Pi good value for money?

Neil_Jones

What do you want the Pi to do?

Most Pis normally retail around $35 for the unit on its own.  That includes everything but the kitchen sink.  SD cards are cheap, you've probably got some already and its not difficult to flash them with a Raspian image.

tafelmoneysaver

Have you compared the price of an equivalent bundle elsewhere? Try looking at  https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/kits/ or https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-kits-and-bundles

debitcardmayhem

What do you want to use it for, we sadly haven't created a Pi crystal ball yet? A bare board is circa $35 but you will need a power supply, spare phone charger will do, sd card you may have a spare one, now a case circa $8 , a fan ?? (I would suggest you use one a fanless pi3B runs at ~58.0C and a 4B with fan runs at ~40.0C running more stuff too )

w00519773

debitcardmayhem said:

What do you want to use it for, we sadly haven't created a Pi crystal ball yet? A bare board is circa $35 but you will need a power supply, spare phone charger will do, sd card you may have a spare one, now a case circa $8 , a fan ?? (I would suggest you use one a fanless pi3B runs at ~58.0C and a 4B with fan runs at ~40.0C running more stuff too )

I am a software developer so I am looking for a top of the range pi to go back to my roots.  These days I take everything for granted working with great high level languages like C# and Java.  I want a top of the range Pi and I am willing to pay for it - whatever it costs.  I just want to pay a reasonable price.

debitcardmayhem

w00519773 said:

debitcardmayhem said:

What do you want to use it for, we sadly haven't created a Pi crystal ball yet? A bare board is circa $35 but you will need a power supply, spare phone charger will do, sd card you may have a spare one, now a case circa $8 , a fan ?? (I would suggest you use one a fanless pi3B runs at ~58.0C and a 4B with fan runs at ~40.0C running more stuff too )

I am a software developer so I am looking for a top of the range pi to go back to my roots.  These days I take everything for granted working with great high level languages like C# and Java.  I want a top of the range Pi and I am willing to pay for it - whatever it costs.  I just want to pay a reasonable price.

Top of the range today is tomorrows old out of date kit, use what you have now for developing.Use Virtual Machines and or cross compile I use my pi4 for streaming live TV from the aerial and pi3 for streaming inbound(shared) audio to a pre streaming  hifi . However a pi4/3/2/0 is a fine piece of kit and low cost / footprint / power drain but you still need it to connect it to something(well until you set it up as headless!)

[Deleted User]

You could save yourself £23 with some smart buying:
 
Main board £73.50 https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b?variant=31994565689406
Power supply £7.50 https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-psu-uk?variant=20064004505662
SD Card £6 https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-microSDHC-Adapter-Performance-SDSQUA4-032G-GN6MA/dp/B08GY9NYRM/
Case £9.99 https://www.amazon.co.uk/GeeekPi-Raspberry-40X40X10mm-Backlight-Heatsinks/dp/B07XXQ34PZ

£96.99 plus £3 P&P from lab hut (assuming free P&P at Amazon)

I'd be tempted to get a passively cooled case - the small fans can be have a bit of a whine and be irritating on some cases, I have a Labist case with a fan that I'm swapping for a heatsink case instead, they don't get that hot, I have 4x stick on heat sinks on each of the main chips.

Cornucopia

It wouldn't be MSE if I didn't point out that there are one-board computing devices that go as cheap as £1, and still pack in a massive amount of computing potential.   It just depends on what you want to research.

Mickey666

Cornucopia said:

It wouldn't be MSE if I didn't point out that there are one-board computing devices that go as cheap as £1, and still pack in a massive amount of computing potential.   It just depends on what you want to research.

I've not got down to £1 yet but I've played around a fair bit with Arduino Nano boards at 3 for a tenner

I'd say they are also a better way for the OP to "get back to my roots" because they don't run an OS as such and you have to write all the code they run from the moment they are switched on.  This can be a big advantage in many applications, but as mentioned above it all depends on what the OP wants to actually do with these things.

I've also found the Pi Zero W pretty useful at only a tenner, including wifi and bluetooth.  If only it supported PoE onboard it would be perfect for many little projects.

FWIW, I'm writing this on a RPi-400, which is basically a Pi 4 packaged inside a keyboard with everything you need (except a screen) to get up and running for around £100.

https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-kits-and-bundles/products/raspberry-pi-400-personal-computer-kit

w00519773

Deleted_User said:

You could save yourself £23 with some smart buying:
 
Main board £73.50 https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b?variant=31994565689406
Power supply £7.50 https://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-psu-uk?variant=20064004505662
SD Card £6 https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-microSDHC-Adapter-Performance-SDSQUA4-032G-GN6MA/dp/B08GY9NYRM/
Case £9.99 https://www.amazon.co.uk/GeeekPi-Raspberry-40X40X10mm-Backlight-Heatsinks/dp/B07XXQ34PZ

£96.99 plus £3 P&P from lab hut (assuming free P&P at Amazon)

I'd be tempted to get a passively cooled case - the small fans can be have a bit of a whine and be irritating on some cases, I have a Labist case with a fan that I'm swapping for a heatsink case instead, they don't get that hot, I have 4x stick on heat sinks on each of the main chips.

What are the 4 main chips? CPU; RAM; bluetooth and PoE? With regards to the heat sync case; do you mean this one: https://thepihut.com/products/aluminium-armour-heatsink-case-for-raspberry-pi-4 (instead of the £9.99 case you quoted).  Would this also replace your stick on heat sinks?

Cornucopia

Mickey666 said:

I've not got down to £1 yet but I've played around a fair bit with Arduino Nano boards at 3 for a tenner

I get my electronics stuff direct from China (mostly on Ali Express, but some on eBay).

All the small boards are around £1, though the postage has increased since last year.   

I particularly like the ESP-01, which is the smallest, most basic ESP8266 board.   It still has a massive spec (80MHz processor, 80K RAM, 0.5-1M Flash, expandable to 4M, Wifi, Web Server, I2C support).   I had an eBay voucher last time I bought some, and paid £4.50 for 5, including shipping.    It's the sort of thing you can use for Internet of Things, where your smart lightswitch will have more computing power than Apollo 13.