Sony PlayStation 4 Pro review: The default selection
MSRP $399.99
“PlayStation 4 Pro is the primary console to take 4K UHD gaming seriously.”
Pros
- 4K gaming for lower than $500
- Improves visuals on select PlayStation VR titles
- Makes all games run barely higher than standard PS4
- Looks good even on 1080p TVs
- Supports all PS4 games
Cons
- HDR might be difficult to establish
- Only a few titles offer 4K support at launch
- No 4K Blu-ray Player
This review was last updated by Digital Trends contributor Cody Perez on 5/11/2020.
Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro was the primary of its kind for gaming consoles when it launched in November 2016, capable of process gameplay at 4K UHD resolution with high dynamic range (HDR), because of a greater graphics card and other hardware improvements.
Unlike past hardware leaps for game consoles, nevertheless, the Pro continues to be a PlayStation 4 at its core. It cannot play any games or game modes that may’t be found on a regular launch console. As a substitute, the Pro offers players, who care how about graphics and determination, the privilege of knowing that their games run in addition to they’ll.
The console doesn’t do all the things you’d have to make it the centerpiece of a high-end media system.
The PlayStation 4 Pro is basically successful on this regard. When played on a 4K TV, the PS4 Pro makes games look sharper and more detailed. On a regular, full HD set, games also run smoother. It’s the perfect PS4 you possibly can buy at once.
We’re gonna need a much bigger box!
Physically speaking, the PS4 Pro isn’t that much different than its recent counterpart, the PS4 “Slim.” It features the identical sharp, slanted design, but with three “slates,” as an alternative of two. The Pro will not be as big as you would possibly guess by taking a look at it; at 295 x 327 x 55mm, it’s two centimeters wider and two centimeters deeper than the unique PS4. At 7.3 lbs, additionally it is a pound heavier than the unique PS4 and almost three kilos greater than the Slim. Nevertheless, it’s a console that just sits under your TV more often than not, so who cares?
It also has some additional ports: The optical drive and two USB 3.1 ports on the front are standard PS4, however the Pro features an additional USB 3.1 port on the back, which is helpful if you’ve gotten a PSVR headset. To accommodate the 4K signal, the HDMI port on the Pro is HDMI 2.0. The Pro also features an optical port, which was included on the unique PS4, but faraway from the “Slim.”
Interestingly, the PS4 Pro’s optical drive is identical one utilized in the PS4, which suggests it doesn’t support 4K Blu-ray, unlike the more powerful Xbox Series X. The console will give you the chance to stream 4K HDR content from apps akin to Netflix and Hulu, but lack of support means the console doesn’t do all the things you’d have to make it the centerpiece of a high-end media system.
When played on a 4K UHD TV, the PS4 Pro makes games look sharper and more detailed.
The actual changes are on the within. The PS4 Pro encompasses a 4.20 Teraflop (TFLOP) AMD Radeon graphics card, which is a serious improvement. Like the usual PS4, it features an 8-core AMD x86-64 Jaguar processor, however the clock speed was amped as much as 2.1GHz. It features 8GB of DDR5 RAM, again, like the unique PS4, but in addition has an additional gigabyte of DDR3 RAM to handle temporary save states for open games and apps. The Pro comes with a 1TB hard disk drive, which just like the PS4, might be replaced with any 2.5-inch SATA hard disk drive.
The underside line is the Pro’s technical upgrade is greater than cosmetic. Even without software support from individual developers, games and apps run more easily, and cargo times may shorten. Some games that push the games hardware to its limits (or have been poorly optimized) will stutter less or see fewer framerate drops. At the identical time, this will not be the type of jump that may enable a recent generation of games just like the PS5 will later this 12 months with vastly more powerful specs over the PS4. Even when Sony did allow PS4 Pro exclusives, those games wouldn’t be much greater or content-rich than what we’re playing now with the subsequent generation on the cusp of release. The improved graphics card may lead to sharper, more detailed games over time, but that’s it.
Shiny, completely satisfied people
The first advantage of the PS4 Pro is the flexibility to play games at 4K UHD resolution. Games look higher in 4K UHD than standard 1080p Full HD games. The 4K profit increases the detail of each wall, every face, every weapon, every vehicle – all the things looks sharper. Even older games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, certainly one of the few 4K-compatible games that was available before the Pro launch, look significantly better. That detail mostly comes through for those who see objects up close — you possibly can stare at a close-up of an individual’s face and see every pore — but you’ll still see less-detailed textures for those who’re vigilant.
So long as you’ve gotten a 4K UHD TV, running a game in 4K could be very easy: The console will robotically scale your resolution to 4K whenever you plug it in, the identical way it scales your resolution on the usual PS4.
Each game also requires a patch enabling 4K support. Before the console’s launch, there have been minimal 4K-enabled games, fewer than 10. That number has grown considerably within the years for the reason that Pro’s launch, however the changes aren’t consistent across the board.
Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
Julian Chokkattu/Digital Trends
With regards to 4K support, every game is different. Though many proposed 4K patches seem to easily enable a high-resolution mode, some games offer you recent settings options. The Witness, for instance, helps you to make a choice from running it at 4K with the framerate locked at 30 frames-per-second (fps), or 1440p, upscaled to 4K, with the framerate locked at 60 fps.
The Xbox One S can also upscale games to 4K. Nonetheless, it doesn’t currently have native 4K games, and most of its games proceed to render at or below 1080p resolution, just as with the unique Xbox One. Skyrim: Special Edition does render at 4K on the PS4 Pro, and other games like Titanfall 2 and The Last Of Us receive a resolution boost.
In lots of cases, the resolution boost increases image quality to a point on each 4K and 1080p sets. When you’re on a 4K set, the increased render resolution means less likelihood softness or up-scaling artifacts. And if you’ve gotten a 1080p television, the sport can “super-sample,” which suggests it renders at a better resolution after which down-scales to 1080p. That leads to a sharper, cleaner image.
In fact, that is all a bit confusing. While many games will “just look higher” whenever you plug the PS4 Pro in, it’s possible you’ll end up tinkering with settings to make games work “right.” This isn’t an issue — more selection is usually an excellent thing — but, as with adding patches and other PC-style system features to consoles, the feature offloads more decisions onto you, and forces you to do more research concerning the technical points of games. After launch, Sony also added a “boost mode” to the Pro, which pushes games without dedicated support for the Pro to run at higher framerates. Unfortunately, the feature is removed from perfect: The outcomes of “boosting” varies from game to game, and Sony has acknowledged that it will possibly cause unexpected glitches to occur, adding more trial-and-error to your console. That’s a boon on PC, where those distinctions assist you to customize your hardware, but on a console, it feels more like a burden.
Shinier, sadder people
Each the PlayStation 4 and PS4 Pro support high-dynamic range, so it technically isn’t only a advantage of the PS4 Pro. But since HDR is simply available in a subset of 4K televisions, and the PS4 Pro was originally shown with 4K and HDR working together to spice up the console’s image equality, it’s a very important, and really questionable, aspect of what the console can do.
With HDR support, Sony has thrust players into the complicated world of competing, unregulated software standards. HDR is a separate feature from 4K that’s mostly unpublicized and might be difficult to discover when buying a television. There are also different types of HDR: The PS4 Pro requires HDR 10, which is different from “HDR Premium.” There’s also a competing standard, Dolby Vision, which has similarities but is not going to work with a PS4 Pro.
Even for those who purchase a compatible TV, there’s an excellent likelihood it’s possible you’ll experience frustrating technical issues that might impede or prevent your ability to play games with HDR. Though it varies from model-to-model and brand-to-brand, plainly models may fit issues. A few of these appear to be firmware-related. In November 2016, LG released a firmware patch for a few of its TVs that specifically addressed problems with the PS4 Pro.
For this review, we tested the PS4 Pro with a Samsung 8-series set, which meets the console’s specifications. The TV was capable of register 4K and HDR in other devices; with the PS4 Pro, nevertheless, the set detected the HDR connection, but couldn’t properly sustain it. The issue was partially fixed when Samsung technicians replaced the motherboard of the TV, but HDR was still not compatible with every setting.
All of those roadblocks make HDR all but unusable, which is a shame.
While it might be easy to easily chalk this as much as a defective TV, it’s price mentioning that the issue wouldn’t have presented in any respect if not for the technical eccentricities of the PS4 Pro. While TV-makers have worked to make their HDR sets PS4 Pro-compatible, it seems fair to say that one and all could have their very own issues navigate when pairing the console with a TV.
What’s more, the PS4 Pro have to be plugged directly into your television to support HDR. It cannot present HDR content through a switcher, receiver, or any type of pass-through. This constraint, which I understand to be rare, if not unprecedented, might be a serious barrier to entry for anyone who uses any type of surround sound or other high-quality home theater equipment. Given how specialized the technology is, it isn’t crazy to think that many individuals who might be able to using HDR will need to use it along with a speaker system.
Even under ideal circumstances, enabling HDR might be more complicated than organising 4K. Though the PS4 Pro makes it as easy as possible, enabling the feature in your TV may require a deep dive into settings and a good amount of trial and error. TV manufacturers appear to conflate 4K UHD (Ultra HD) and HDR. It will vary from set to set, nevertheless it is complicated, and there is no such thing as a intuitive road map to get it working.
All of those roadblocks make HDR all but unusable, which is a shame. Based on what we saw on the PS4 Pro unveiling event, where we saw the PS4 Pro using 4K and HDR together, and our review unit where we played in 4K only, HDR definitely is the more impressive of the 2 upgrades. The more dynamic lighting lets you see across longer distances, and discern subtle details in brilliant and dark places that may be obscured standard HD.
Going “Pro” in VR
The PlayStation 4 Pro can even improve how well PSVR games work, no matter what TV you’ve gotten. In response to Sony’s Mark Cerny, the PS4 Pro doesn’t robotically incur any technical improvements without dedicated support built into individual games. Based on our testing, we generally found this to be the case. Though games may seek to make use of the PS4 Pro to boost PSVR in other ways, the added graphical power seems to permit the headset to point out more detailed renderings at a better resolution.
Warranty information
The PlayStation 4 Pro features a one-year limited liability warranty from the manufacturer.
Our Take
The PS4 Pro is undoubtedly the perfect version of the PlayStation 4, nevertheless it will not be so significantly better that you need to feel compelled to upgrade when a greater recent console is on the way in which shortly.
Is there a greater alternative?
That is determined by your situation. The usual PS4 is able to playing all the identical games, so that you won’t miss out on any titles with its cheaper price point. The Pro, in that case, is simply for those seeking to get essentially the most out of their 4K TV. Otherwise, the one alternatives at once are the Xbox One X or a gaming PC, but you’ll miss out on amazing exclusives like Persona 5 Royal and Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
How long will it last?
Not very long in any respect. The PS5 continues to be scheduled to release this holiday, barring any problems with production or launch, so the clock is running out on the PS4 Pro and this generation normally. There’ll likely be some cross-generation games firstly of the subsequent generation, but that may only go on for therefore long.
Must you buy it?
Yes, though it’s price remembering the PlayStation 5 is correct across the corner. When you are shopping on a budget, try the perfect Black Friday PlayStation 4 deals we found.
This text was last updated by Digital Trends contributor Cody Perez on May 11, 2020.
Editors’ Recommendations