I've been holding off on buying a 2nd PS4 for sometime now. My oldest kid is starting to have friends that play online, so he and I have had small discussions on who gets to game. 1 So when word was starting to leak out that Sony was releasing a mid-cycle update to the PS4, I hesitated on buying anything... until yesterday.
I saw the highlights of Sony's product announcement yesterday and knew exactly what I was going to do...
Buy another original PS4.
Yep. After all the hype from Sony's stream yesterday, I got another original PS4. Why? Because after all the excitement passed, I took a look at the 3 versions and saw the middle of the road PS4 was still the best value in my mind.
Here's a comparison of the specs of each of the PS4 systems now available:
| PLAYSTATION 4 PRO | PLAYSTATION 4 SLIM | PLAYSTATION 4 (2013) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $399 | $299 | $349 |
| Resolution | 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 4K (select titles), HDR | 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 4K (video only), HDR | 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 4K (video only), HDR |
| CPU | AMD Jaguar x86-64, 8-core | AMD Jaguar x86-64, 8-core | AMD Jaguar x86-64, 8-core |
| GPU | AMD Radeon, 4.20 TFLOP | AMD Radeon, 1.84 TFLOP | AMD Radeon, 1.84 TFLOP |
| RAM | 8GB | 8GB | 8GB |
| Storage | 1TB | 500GB / 1TB | 500GB / 1TB |
| Media | BR/DVD | BR/DVD | BR/DVD |
| WiFi | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac | 802.11 b/g/n |
| Ethernet | 10/100/1000 | 10/100/1000 | 10/100/1000 |
| Bluetooth | v4.0 | v4.0 | v2.1 |
| Ports | USB 3.0 (x3), HDMI 2.0a, S/PDIF | USB 3.0 (x2), HDMI 2.0a | USB 3.0 (x2), HDMI 1.4, S/PDIF |
On paper, the PS4 Pro looks promising - more storage, better GPU, and can output 4k video for some game titles. But when it was all said and done, the original PS4 still looks the best in my mind. Here's my reasoning:
- The PS4 Pro doesn't play 4k Blu-Ray. If the PS4 Pro won't play the media format Sony's movie division has been touting, then I'll wait for the next gen console that does.
- The output resolution between the PS4 Slim and the Original PS4 are identical.
- The WiFi upgrade is irrelevant because I always have a hard wire connection to my console.
- The PS4 Slim is lost its optical out port (S/PDIF), this means my headphone setup won't work with the PS4 slim. 2
If the PS4 Pro had any either a bump in RAM or played 4k Blu-Ray, then the choice would have been a no brainer.