A Closer Look
The AKASA Gem Pro is a fantastic looking piece of kit. It’s obviously pretty compact, which is no surprise given that it’s designed for such a tiny computer.
Actually, compared to the Pi 4 here, it’s pretty massive. However, that’s by design, as the extra surface area improves the passive heat dissipation of the case.
It’s made from aluminium, so it’s incredibly strong, and a few severe knocks and bumps are unlikely to cause harm to the Pi 4. It’s also fairly lightweight, so if you do need a more portable system, that’s a good advantage.
The top panel looks great too, with this weird pattern milled into the aluminium block. The one-piece look to it gives it a premium quality look and feel.
I’m pretty confident even the passive cooling of a solid slab of aluminium would do the trick though, but I like that they’ve made an effort on the design. While many will hide this box out of sight, it looks funky enough to place on your desktop and show it off to the world.
Of course, the Pi 4 has a lot of I/O capabilities, so you’ll find all the usual holes CNC’d into the side.
There are more ports on the end too.
Then a final one here that can be used to run an external ribbon cable too. It’s designed to just drop the Pi 4 in and get going.
The interior of the case is pretty simple, and it’s just a little bit bigger than the Pi 4 its self. There are mounts to screw the PCB down and that’s about it really.
There’s more vertical space than anything, which will allow you to use the included thermal pads and aluminium blocks. There’s a small amount of thermal paste included too.
These are what connect the chipset to the case its self, turning the whole thing into a CPU cooler. You just stick them on top of the Pi 4 and close up the case.
It’s not a particularly complex process really, and overall it only takes a few minutes to set up everything.
