https://osmc.tv/2019/06/raspberry-pi-4-model-b-announced/ Sam from OSMC has some not very good news about Pi 4, only with kodi 19 (aprox. 2021) some things will work.
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This is a good breakdown of the hardware on the board.
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Got some pretty impressive specs for something in that price range , thats for sureā¦
But still its kinda like comparing Nascar to Gran Prix where the Piās maybe the king but unfortunately that would be in the Nascar league, now i realize that some prefer Nascar over Gran Prix but i also think most would agree that from a technical point Gran Prix is definately engineered at a league above Nascar.
by the wayā¦ the N2 Like the RockProās are in the Gran Prix leagueā¦
hows that for a analogy?.. lolā¦
I can cope with reading it once, but 3 times and my eyes hurt.
Grand prix
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sorry. my badā¦ goes to show how much i watch that. originally i was going to say forumula one but then something in my head said use GP instead.
there ya go we fixā¦ actually i did it 4 timesā¦ hahaa
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That seems like a good analogy to me, GP versus NASCAR. They do seem to be in different leagues. The RPi is deisgned to be a general purpose SBC. It does that really well with amazingly low cost for what you get. The AMLlogic boards and similar are designed for multi-media applications. Theyāre more expensive, but they also provide all the hardware features you need for that sort of thing.
How any of these companies think they can get away with releasing these products without cooling is beyond me. The RP4 is crippled to performance barely better than a RP3 out of the box due to thermal throttling issues. It doesnāt even throttle elegantly - it stalls and crashes. How is that acceptable engineering ?
Bad engineering seems endemic to SBC manufacturers, and all of the S922xās but the N2 seem destined to be compromised by the same basic issue. Wheres the respect for the customer here ?
Shoog
I donāt know, I have that complaint about pretty much all consumer electronics these days. I think itās due to the effect of Chinese industrial culture where the objective is to just get it out the door as cheaply as possible. American and Japanese companies used to not suffer from this, but Iāve noticed a definite downturn in engineering quality from them as well.
The pi is unlikely to ever ship with proper cooling by default, they canāt make their magic price if they donāt cut corners like that.
edit: Strapping a proper hunk of aluminum to a device to keep it cool does add a fair bit to the BOM.
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I suspect that most peoples uses for the Pi wonāt tax it enough to overheat to detrimental effect and so far, whilst we do see some reports of overheating under stress, if it was a global problem then the web would be awash with user backlash.
Fitting a heat sink with a thermal pad is also within the realm and budget of most people methinks.
It sells like hotcakes right now and will put undoubted pressure on the Chinese vendors profit margins.
I dont know - the inability to perform one of its advertised tasks (play 4K) is going to effect a lot of people.
Shoog
Iāll bet that the large support community will be working quicker then expected to iron out the key bugs to get the advertised 4k working satisfactorily.
It would seem suicidal for the Pi makers to launch knowing that it would never happen, although it could be reasonable argued that they might have perhaps jumped the gun a little to get a launch as Chinese vendors have been ahead for some time now with their new products.
I feel sure that S922x sellers (with the possible exception of HK) will be twiddling their thumbs in the orders offices right now and as has already been seen with the NanoPi M4 reducing itās price from $65 to $50, others will follow suit to compete.
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If I was in the market for a board then I would be tempted by the PI4. Well within my DIY skills and exceeds what I need since I only go to 1080. It canāt fail really.
Shoog
HK i just keeping in-line with its good design principles when they could do as the others and knock a few bux off the BOM . alluminiumās not cheap these days.
To be honest tho i really think most of the poor designs are like that because for years now the marketing industry has trained most of the sheep in the world to believe in nothing lasts more then a couple of years before ya have to get the next version, and even then i alot of cases if the hardware still works they trained the sheep to get the new one cause the old one is old and ugly.
So for someone manufacturing you can go with good design and keep your ethics or get gready and take the poor way and cut corners but make more money cause the margins are wider, and when their devices ultimately fail they get minimal blow back as the sheep have been trained to just move on and buy something new.
Thumbs up to makers like HK for taking the high road and hopefully their market will keep growing, one thing i have always noticed about HK and that is its got a real good loyal base. They need to somehow attrack the attention of the education industry as the Arduinoās and Raspberries did which really boosted their sales iniitially. School boards are always on the lookout for good teaching tools.
I am using Rpi2 as multimedia center for years, and never had problem with heat. Skippin Rpi3 also due to heating benchs (HTPC with active cooling is no go for me). I hope that Rpi4 will be better and get back to the good products (for my use cases) before Rpi3ā¦
Btw, agree with poor heat management in el. segment, numerous times Ive got reply āits quite below chip specs from datasheetā. Yea, but what about capacitors around etc. When you planning 10y> lifespan?
For me fortunatelly isnt big deal to dissassembly and add passive to the anything (and doing it that for all devices which I concerns, including router with great result so far, like 15years+), but not all people are interested in electronics 
Ok, so I want to ask now, is there any support Libre/CoreElec for Rpi4? (current or planned?). As far as I can read here, Coreelec support is not planned? Any working Kodi?
LE has support on release day.
CE has no plans since it is a Broadcom chipset and CE is specific to AMLogic chipsets.
Shoog
Please provide any links to support your above statement.
Wow! Now we all blame everything on the Chinese. Let the blaming game start ā¦ Cheers.