PS5 Pro unboxing: size, accessories, ports, new info

With the launch of the new system now just a few short days away, it’s time for a PS5 Pro unboxing in order to take a look at the device itself and what consumers can expect to find in its retail box along the main unit. Its packaging did not hold any surprises – apart from the fact that it does not mention any support for 8K displays despite offering it – but there are a few things worth pointing out in the documentation included. As part of this first hands-on it’s also interesting to compare it to the current PS5 model (what we used to call “PS5 Slim” for a few months) in terms of size and port arrangement.

First things first: there’s nothing unusual about the accessories that come with the PS5 Pro. After opening the retail box one will find a power cord, an HDMI cable (of 2.1 specs), the plastic feet – first seen in last year’s PS5 Slim packaging – that allow the unit to be placed on a surface horizontally and a USB-C to USB-C cable for charging the DualSense controller. The controller itself seems identical to the one accompanying every PS5 since its 2020 release, but if yours truly finds any difference in use between that and past DualShock controllers – Sony has made various small internal improvements here and there over time – he will be sure to mention it in the forthcoming review.

Taking a look at the printed Safety Guide one can finally go through the full, official hardware specification sheet of the PS5 Pro – plus a couple of other interesting tidbits worth mentioning. Some of those have already leaked in an early unboxing video done in a retail store that got its units early, but they are worth mentioning nonetheless. In the specs sheet, for instance, Sony claims that the GPU inside the PS5 Pro is around 60% more powerful than the one found inside the regular PS5 (16.7 TFLOPS vs 10 TFLOPS), which will not directly translate to the same level of additional gaming performance but is indicative of the difference one can expect. It’s probably responsible for the higher power consumption rating of the PS5 Pro, though which – at 390 Watts – is around 50 Watts higher than that of the PS5.

There are a couple of more interesting things mentioned in the Safety Guide. One has to do with the PS5 Pro memory configuration: along with the 16GB of GDDR6 unified system memory already present on the current PS5 too, the PS5 Pro also sports an additional 2GB of GDDR5 memory, obviously on a separate chip. This is probably what early leaks referred to when claiming that “up to 1.6GB of extra RAM will be available to developers”: this slower-but-just-enough RAM can temporarily hold data that other apps or the system itself need for multitasking, in order to allow the CPU/GPU/NPU use the full 16GB in games. Sony did the same thing with the PS4 Pro (incorporating an extra GB of RAM) and it worked pretty well, especially when it came to upscaling scenarios (even more important in the case of the PS5 Pro).

One final thing mentioned in the Safety Guide: the CMOS battery of the PS5 Pro – best known as the “coin battery” used on PC motherboards – is now directly accessible and thus replaceable by consumers thanks to its slot being put under a small separate cover. The CMOS battery holds important information about the system – such as time, date and various basic settings – that every device of this type needs in order to function properly. In all other PS5 models one would have to practically take the console apart in order to get to that CMOS battery, but in the case of the PS5 Pro it’s a matter of taking one cover off and loosening one screw. Honestly, it is the kind of consumer-friendly choice that every manufacturer should try to offer going forward.

Going back to the PS5 Pro unit itself: up close it looks smaller and much less imposing that what its first photos made it out to be. It is roughly as tall as the OG PS5 but slimmer and shallower than that model (so it looks better on its vertical stand). All four of its covers are made of matte plastic – unlike the standard PS5 where the top covers are not matte – and their white color is somewhat subdued and, well, more Pro-looking. This is a console that practically begs for black faceplates (which Sony promises to release at some point in the future since the PS5 Slim ones don’t fit after all) and one that succeeds in subtly expressing that message of “more power” compared to its more affordable sibling.

A look at the back of the PS5 Pro does not reveal anything out of the ordinary either. The ports on offer are the same as before (the HDMI one presumably now supports all resolutions and refresh rates allowed by v2.1) and the only visible difference can be found in the USB 3.0 ports, which are black instead of blue (spec-wise they are exactly the same). No changes on the front, too – just the power button and a couple of USB-C ports: a 5 Gbps, “hi-speed” one (meant for charging really) and a 10 Gbps, “super-speed” one (meant for use with a PSVR2 or high-speed external storage devices such as SSDs). All as expected, really, as there’s hardly any reason to add or change much on the PS5 Pro ports-wise.

While this PS5 Pro unboxing or its packaging did not reveal any game-changing information about the latest PlayStation, the truth is that they did not need to. This is a product as well-designed and well-built as we’ve come to expect from Sony, thoughtfully put-together and virtually feature-complete, so it’s now time to focus on what matters most: the user experience and performance in those PS5 Pro Enhanced games themselves. When it comes to the value this $700 may or may not bring to consumers, it all comes down to what more it can deliver compared to the more affordable PS5. Lots to talk about in the forthcoming PS5 Pro review, then!