Raspberry Pi 4 4GB Basic Starter Kit with Fan-Cooled Heavy-Duty Aluminum Alloy Case

It was easy to assemble, the heat sinks and fan are a nice touch in a solid aluminum case. I set up the the fan option to turn on at 60C and even when doing heavy stuff like pishrink on the pi itself the fan only kicks on every once in a while for like 15 seconds or so, works well. We all know the PI, this is a nice overall kit for sure.

Truly a great value, it puts other kits to shame (especially CanaKit). For a fair market price you get superior quality products to what others are offering for even higher price points. The solid metal case is way stronger than it realistically needs to be, but strength against physical impacts is never a bad thing to have. I am a tall, heavy person and I can stand on it with my foot and it doesn't even budge. A side feature of the metal case other than it's raw strength is the fact is acts as a passive heatsink in addition to the active cooling provided by the fan. It sucks the heat out of the peripheral ports, further cooling the device down while the provided cooling fan and fins actively cool the main board components. Running a full graphical desktop with MATE/GNOME 2 DE and a 720p YouTube video on Chromium my Pi 4 idles at 45 degrees Celsius, something I never thought possible. The hottest it has ever gotten under full load was 55 degrees Celsius, a seriously impressive number I still have trouble believing in even as I write this review. You're told exactly what to place where with pictures instead of text so it's universal no matter what your language is, but if you can't figure out peel and stick a Raspberry Pi probably isn't the device for you in the first place. The micro HDMI to full size HDMI adapter is well made, none of the usual insert wobble I see on a lot of the cheaper cables. It holds your HDMI cable in so tightly you have to wrestle it back out of there by wiggling it out. Some may see that as a negative but in my eyes that means it's not accidentally disconnecting no matter what happens. The included fan is surprisingly good and quiet. I already own a replacement pack of Pi fans but found them not necessary to use as the included fan is of similar high quality and runs silently at 3.3 volts via GPIO pins. The USB-C power supply provides true RMS rating, no under voltage here. The switch is a nice addition as it didn't originally come with one in earlier revisions. It saves you the port wear of plugging and unplugging your USB-C connector every time you want to power off the device for the day.

Good kit with easy setup. Excellent case; no overheating issues noted. This is the second kit I've ordered. The first one is over a year old with no problems noted.

Metal case is really solid. Feels nice and heavy and solid. No rattles or motion on the board at all. Fan plugs in easily and is very quiet. I like this kit a lot and recommend it. Two notes for specific use cases: 1. The power supply brick is oriented so that it will take up more than one slot on a power strip unless you use the end slot and hang the brick off the end. I bought an extra power supply that is skinny and turned 90 degrees so I could use it in a crowded power strip where I planned to use this box. 2. I bought several of these kits. One of them was to be placed in my garage, where the wifi reception is not as strong as the rest of the house. The metal case blocks a good bit of the wifi signal. So much so that I could not get wifi to connect from this device at all. I switched to a plastic case and it connects easily and reliably. Despite these two notes, I like this kit a lot.

The case itself is definitely the highlight of this kit: very sturdy, no wobbling of any of the internals, and looks great compared to the thousands of tacky/cheap cases on the market for the RPi 4B. There seems to be plenty of access to fish in a few cables for GPIO, which is always nice. The whole kit arrived very well-packed and on-time. The fan didn't impress me. It IS silent, and I didn't have any problems with cables bumping into the blades, but I couldn't feel any airflow at all with it on. I've used a few Pi fans in the last few years, and even the ones which seemed more like gimmicks than actual cooling devices at least pushed enough airflow to tingle my skin. I'll have to keep an eye on temps and see how it goes. The micro HDMI to HDMI adapter is a nice touch. It worked out of the box for me and saved me some money buying another one. The USB-C power adapter with on/off switch was something I was really looking forward to having included, but unfortunately mine arrived dead. I have backup official power adapters for the Pi 4B since this is such a common problem among aftermarket adapters, unfortunately. Enough to knock a star off for me, but not enough to completely spoil the Day 1 experience. Had to snap a pic of the sleek matte-black case in its temporary spot next to my Beelink media server while there was still a little daylight left coming through the windows :)

As advertised, this kit has almost everything somebody needs to start doing projects with the Pi. As per the product description, it comes with a case, the Pi itself (I bought the 4 GB RAM model), USB-C power supply, micro HDMI to HDMI converter cable, two heatsinks, and the quickstart guide, all contained within a single plastic bag (all of the important components were in boxes). However, you will still a few more components before you get everything up and running, including: - A HDMI cable for a monitor - A keyboard/mouse for input (I use a Logitech K400+ wireless touch keyboard and it works great) - A micro SD card for memory storage/operating system (recommend at least 8 GBs or more, Raspbian OS will take up 1-5 GBs of space depending on the installation you choose; I currently use a Samsung 32GB U1 MicroSDHC EVO Select Memory Card in my setup) The Raspberry Pi 4 itself is a nifty card-sized computer, and I am currently using it as a personal VPN device (running PiVPN) and PiHole for ad blocking, with future plans for a NAS installation. ------------------ For the rest of the review, I'll try to focus mainly on the components unique to this kit: - For me at least, the included heatsinks DO fit in the case; they were easy to place and the case closed without issues. My Pi runs between 35-40 C on the quieter pin setup with normal operations (including with Chromium browser use and games running) and hovers between 30-35 C when idling. - The case is completely matte black inside and out and seems to be of high quality aluminum, with both the top and lower parts of the shell machined well enough and fits together nicely (it did require a tiny bit of pressure to snap the top/lower parts together after sliding the Pi into place but otherwise no parts on the board are touching the case or fan and sits well inside). The case fan is already in place inside of the top case shell when it arrived, and I have not attempted to remove fan yet. Per customer support, the fan can be removed and replaced with a 30x30 mm fan. - The Vilros branded micro HDMI to HDMI adapter cable included with this kit is adequate for its purpose. Some of the reviews here mention the micro HDMI end of the cable seems to be loose; I thought this was also the case for me too at first until I noticed that you have to push the connector all the way into the port itself for it to seat properly. Once you do this, it seems to be secure and doesn't jiggle at all, and I haven't had any issues with the cable breaking since I bought the kit. I think one of the nicer selling points of this kit are the guide/paperwork included with the kit, especially the quickstart guide. For somebody new to the Pi (myself included), having some decent instructions to point me in the right direction right out of the box was comforting and helped build my confidence in putting everything together and get it up and running (see my pics for some included inserts from the package that might help you readers out). Overall, I feel that this was a worthwhile purchase and I'll make sure to post updates if something happens to any part of the kit or the Pi as I'm using them. Pros: - The included peripherals (HDMI adapter cable, case, fan, heatsinks) are of good build quality (at least for my order) and are adequately priced when bought together as a kit vs separately - Case is strong and well-machined, parts fit inside well enough - Good instructions included in package for Pi newbies Cons: - None at this time

The Vilros Raspberry Pi 4 kit was well packaged and delivered as scheduled by Amazon. I’ve never assembled or owned a Raspberry Pi computer before, but following the assembly instructions provided in the kit was easy. It may have taken 10 minutes to assemble the computer and the nice, relative weighty die-cast Aluminum chassis. Another reviewer had commented that the chassis did not assemble correctly without some physical modification. Additionally, another reviewer mentioned that the heat sinks could not be assembled and still fit within the chassis. I did not find either case to apply to my build. The fit and finish are perfect. The kit exudes quality. This Aluminum case does not effect my WiFi connection at all, I am able to use my WiFi network to load FLAC music files onto the attached USB 3.0 drive easily from my Windows 10 PC using RPi 4 music streamer setup. I flashed Volumio with my ThinkPad and docking station SD read/write slot, and installed it following the instructions on Volumio’s Web site. I connected my iPhone wirelessly to the Raspberry Pi and started playing music through my stereo system. Again, following the Volumio instructions was very straightforward and the system works like a charm. I've since switched to piCorePlayer and Logitech Media Server running on the RPi 4. This is a great server/streamer setup that really makes the most use of the RPi 4.

Took a chance on this with no reviews, one over the usual kit, and I'm very happy with it. The case is indeed solidly built, hefty, and the fan is nice with two pin modes (quiet and normal). If you're like me and wanting to do this as a weekend project, let me save you a little time as you might have some of the same questions during setup: - Fan: Take an extra second reading the fan wiring instructions carefully, it's super easy and clear to install but if you mix up the pins like I did the fan will run but it will interrupt booting (and give you a solid red light with no green). I thought this was an eeprom error and spent too much time troubleshooting it that way, but realized I had the wires mixed up. Works great now with no problems. - Feet: The rubber feet are indeed cut out from the adhesive even if they don't look it at first, just peel away and stick, no need to cut them out. - Heatsink: It doesn't look like the two smaller heatsinks (of the 4) can be in place with the case top on; instead there's two heat-pipes that extend down from the case lid that rest on the two small chips. Maybe someday I'll apply thermal paste to make the connection, but that day is not this day. The other two larger ones apply nicely. - Seating: Carefully slide the pi board power/hdmi ports into their holes first, and then push down and it should sit nicely. Otherwise the holes won't line up and you'll be momentarily confused. - Case snaps together and stays tight, then four screws from the bottom to secure. The micro to hdmi adapter is nice to have too.