The new Raspberry Pi 4 is the newest version of RPi with upgraded RAM, CPU, and dual-HMDI support. It is so powerful that one can use it as a main computer, and in particular the 4GB model is so popular that it is out of stock in two weeks. Luckily I had the chance to visit their new (and first) Pi Store in Cambridge. I bought a Pi4/4GB for 53GBP and a case for 6GBP, which were a little cheaper than most online shops. I didn’t buy the offfical charger (8GBP) because I thought I can use a QC phone charger, and also because that I would need an EU plug.

When I got home I was very excited to prepare the boosting: format a SD card and install the NOOBS, plug in monitor through a mini-HDMI adapter, connect it with my QC3.0 phone charger. Then the LED is on with stable red and a few green flashes and it stopped as shown below:

I checked one instruction which said that if the red flashes then it indicates that the power is not sufficient but in my case the red is constantly on, so I suspect that my SD card is corrupt. I repeated the formtting and installation and also tested on another brand, but it looks the same. Finally I gave up trying and thought maybe just doing everything in the “normal” way and get an official charger, which costed 8.99EUR. Just for fun I also bought a Pi Zero WH for 14.5EUR

On the official charger it all worked! With Pi4 everything is pretty smooth except that it always indicated high temperature in the top-rght corner, for which I remember that the stuff at the Pi Store recommended a fan (I got six for 11EUR) for the new version.

So why the QC charger didn’t work in my case? It does supports 5V/3A output as the official charger. From reviews it seems that the Pi4 isn’t USB-C complient and doesn’t work with E-Marked cables.

Typed on a Psion 5MX