The PS4… The brainchild of Sony Interactive Entertainment was released November 29th in 2013, and quickly became the dominant piece hardware for the current generation of consoles. Now, coming to the end of the year, deals for consoles will start cropping up – Is now the time to finally upgrade to a PS4 Pro? Having just upgraded to a Pro, here are my thoughts.

First of all, if you have a 4K TV that supports HDR, this is a no-brainer. There’s nothing quite like playing games in 4K – The first game that I played in 4K was Horizon Zero Dawn, which in 1080p is still a beautiful game, but when pumped up, it becomes even better. The graphics are sharp and clean the distinction between colours and whites and blacks are incredible. I haven’t experienced anything that looks as good within a game – This is also just as prominent within other games. F1 2018 is another example; this game, due to changes within rules for the 2018 F1 season, required all of the cars to be remodelled – This meant that it could be done at a higher quality making it look better on standard TVs and even better in 4K.

Even if you don’t have a 4K TV, there are still benefits to be had with upgrading to a PS4 Pro – When playing games that don’t support 4K, such as, for example, Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4, there is the benefit of a higher framerate – More frames mean that things can look smoother to the eye, which in a competitive game like Call of Duty, it could be the difference between coming first or second within a game of Blackout.

The other benefit I received with getting a PS4 Pro was that I got an increase in hard drive size –  This means that I can have more games installed at once; this is a massive bonus for me as I often have 3 or 4 games on the go at the same time – I’m currently playing Battlefield 1, Destiny 2 (Forsaken DLC), CoD: BO4, Horizon Zero Dawn and F1 2018; I have also got a few different games installed that I’ve been playing with the Respawning team, like Friday the Thirteenth and games that I’ve been reviewing like the Dakar 18 rally game. Going from a 500GB drive to a 1TB drive makes my life far easier and means that I can enjoy more games at the same time.

So the answer to my initial question, “Should you upgrade to a new PS4?” is yes, you should, even if you don’t have a 4K TV. There are benefits to be had either way – It also gives you a reason to upgrade to a 4K TV in the future; not only do you have the ability to play games in 4K but with the Blu-ray disk drive, you can start buying 4K Blu-rays to watch films in 4K. You can also connect a 4K Netflix account to binge watch all your favourite shows in the highest quality possible.

The real question is, when should you upgrade to a PS4 Pro? When I bought my Pro, I got it from a trade-in store by trading in my old iPhone 6S, and my old PS4. The full price of the console was £320 and after getting store credit for the old items, all I had to pay was £14. If you have the money or the old tech lying around to trade in for a new console, and there is one available, go for it… But, as much as I hate to admit it, we are in the build-up to Christmas… And Christmas means Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I would be surprised if you didn’t see PS4s and PS4 Pros at a discount around this time, so as long as you can find the deal, it’s also worth the wait.

So in reality, everything that I’ve just said is extremely subjective to your own situation, but entirely based off my own experience. I thank you for reading through to the end though – The final thoughts are this; it is definitely worth upgrading your PS4; there is far more 4K and HDR content out there than ever before and there’s only going to be more coming in the future. I would highly recommend upgrading to a PS4 Pro, especially since there doesn’t look to be new hardware from Sony for at least another year, maybe two. As to when you upgrade, that is up to you. Have a look in your local city or town centre for trade-in stores that may have PS4s; have a look online as well, CEX can tell you which stores around you have various items in stock – Also, keep an eye on Amazon and eBay; you can often find deals there, maybe also the Facebook marketplace. People may be selling things on there at a price that’s a steal.

Please note that the experiences I have had with games in 4K could be very different from what you experience. There is currently no standard for 4K and everyone is trying to create their own. This means that a TV made by Sony could be worse than a TV made by Samsung, even though they both say that they support 4K on the box.