PlayStation 4 Pro Review: 4K gaming is here – but is it worth upgrading now?

In August, Microsoft kick-started the second wave of this current console generation, releasing its Xbox One S to a largely receptive audience. Now, Sony is returning fire with the PlayStation 4 Pro, an updated version of the standard PS4, which – like Microsoft’s machine – is designed to get the most out of the coming era of 4K televisions.

Unlike the Xbox One S, this is no radical aesthetic departure. PS4 Pro looks like a vertically elongated version of the regular PS4, with slightly curved edges giving it a smoother outline. At 295mm x 327mm x 55mm it is bigger and heavier than the new PS4 Slim and the original model. It’s sort of brutalist in design – resembling what a multistorey car park might look like in Blade Runner. The power and eject buttons are now at separate ends of the front fascia, so you’re less likely to keep pressing the wrong one.

Sold with an HDMI cable, DualShock controller and power lead, The PS4 Pro has everything you need in the box, and the set-up takes seconds. Unfortunately though, the 4K calibration procedure isn’t as exhaustive as with Xbox One S: Microsoft’s machine automatically tests the 4K and HDR capabilities of your TV and lets you know how it’s likely to perform – the PS4 Pro gives you a notification that your television may be capable of HDR and 4K, but the rest is up to you and your grasp of TV system menus. However, the process does allow you to easily transfer all your games and saves from your old PS4 – as long as you connect them both to the same Wi-fi network and have an ethernet cable to connect them.

The PS4 Pro is a considerably more powerful version, and higher spec than the Xbox One S. The central processing unit has had a 30 per cent speed boost from 1.6GHz to 2.1GHz, while the graphics processing unit has leapt from 1.84 teraflops (trillion floating-point operations per second) in the original machine to 4.2 teraflops, a substantial lift in performance. This is all necessary to render game visuals – and run streaming video – at ultra HD 4K resolution, rather than the 1080p HD resolution supported by older models.

The Pro also offers an extra USB port at the rear (handy for the PlayStation VR headset) and brings back the Optical Digital port for connection to certain headsets and AV receivers. Finally, the addition of support for 802.11ac Wi-fi (also offered in the slimline PS4), may well improve your broadband connection speed.