Upgrade Raspberry PI ?

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xyeovillian

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#261644 8-Dec-2019 14:58

I have a Raspberry pi 3+ at the moment running Kodi which works well with my favourite TV addons working really well.
I have a friend who would like one of these, I was wondering if I let her have it and get the new Raspberry PI 4 solely for the same purpose for running Kodi.
Is it worth upgrading mine or just get another pi 3+ for her just for the TV addons, would I notice a significant difference between the 2 boxes?

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2370536 8-Dec-2019 15:21

It depends. If everything you use now works fine, chances are you won't notice much difference, if any.

The Pi 4 would have advantages if you wanted to move to 4k output or your add ons can't use hardware offloading for video decoding, as the CPU is much more capable. If you're constrained by Ethernet throughput (more of an issue with 4k), then again the Pi 4 would offer some advantages.

richms

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#2370566 8-Dec-2019 18:22

I have had numerous HDMI issues with my pi4 just not showing anything on the TV - both my 4k one and old 1080p one - powercycle the pi doesnt help, unplug the HDMI and then powercycle the pi and its back in business but has to do a file system check. Its still up when I have no output because I can ping it etc.

Pi 3 running retropie never failed to have a picture when I switched to that input on the TV.

Richard rich.ms

PANiCnz

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#2370578 8-Dec-2019 18:59

Software support for rpi4 is still spotty, but i think it’s still an all round upgrade on the 3. Even the Kodi GUI IS noticeably smoother. Might just pay to wait another few months for the bugs to get ironed out.

timmmay

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#2370593 8-Dec-2019 19:47

I used R.Pi's for years for Kodi. For $130 the Xiaomi Mibox is much easier and more flexible. I only got my Mi Box a few weeks ago, but I've already completely stopped using the R.Pi and the Roku Stick. I have it running Kodi, Netflix, Disney, and youtube mostly. It Just Works, whereas the R.Pi I had to tweak a bit to work how I wanted. I got a USB ethernet adapter for the Mi Box, which hugely reduced eliminated buffering at startup of a show, maybe because my WiFi is only ok.

Kiwifruta

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#2370700 8-Dec-2019 21:25

The Fire TV devices also work well with Kodi.