Here are the six most surprising things I learned about the PS5 Pro.

So, you’ve probably seen reviews on PlayStation 5 Pro. I haven’t had my device long enough yet to give a full and critical review of it, but I’ve had enough time with the expensive new set to get my first feelings about it. And it’s all pretty easy to sum it up: Sony is weird.

There are so many things I love about this console – Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth plays like a dream and feels almost like a completely new game, for example, but there are some baffling elements in the design decisions that make me wonder if this whole mid-gen upgrade was a last-minute decision rather than a crotchety affair. a strategy that was carefully thought out and implemented.

I’ve tried to line up my biggest surprises into a list below, and I’ve even put together a little recap for you of my early days with the console at the bottom of the page (head over to it if you’re after TL;DR, mostly).

PlayStation’s solution to transferring configuration data between consoles is still terrible

The last time I encountered exporting data from one PlayStation console to another was using PS4 To PS4 Pro. I decided not to do this from PS4 Pro to PS5 because honestly my first experience was so bad that I decided to just flush my internet connection and download everything “fresh” to my retail PS5.

This time, however, I just wanted to get out and play—export my existing PS5 settings, save data, and games and get started as quickly as possible. No dice. After connecting both consoles, connecting them via a wired connection to my router, and browsing through the weird user interface Sony gives you to get started, I spent a good 45 minutes troubleshooting why my base PS5 wouldn’t start transferring data. It looks like this happened because my DualSense wasn’t fully updated (yes, really).

Once that weird wrinkle was fixed, I started transferring files from one machine to another. Any hope I had of using the Pro on day one instantly evaporated as I was told it would take me about 20 hours to move less than 600GB of data. Why? I have a fiber internet connection running over a wired LAN and I know I can achieve speeds of around 100MB/s when connected to the network (80MB/s over Wi-Fi).

I know that downloads from the PS Store happen all the time, especially compared to how quickly I received, say, Black Opera 6 I’m running on my Series X. But I was stunned to see that moving such games takes the better part of a day. I’m surprised things haven’t gotten better since the PS4; in fact, I think it could be worse.

It is not possible to determine which PS5 Pro games are enhanced from the library.

Yes, I could be wrong, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to immediately determine which games in my library have Pro enhancements. For a console whose only selling point is “your games will run better here,” this is baffling. There are more than 50 games who have already benefited from the updates: tell me what it is!? Even the Xbox Series X/S has a cute little label on the games in its X Enhanced library. That’s a very, very low bar.

I work in the industry now, so I’ve been researching which games are getting performance patches and when they’ll be coming out (because no, not all of them made it by the PS5 Pro release date – are they? that’s true. Gran Turismo 7?) The average person will not know about this; I expect people will just want to boot up their console and play, and there’s no way to tell which games have been slightly tweaked from your own catalog, which is especially puzzling since many games will works better without patches, but Pro patches are required to get the most out of the console’s power.

I had to resort to using the Store. Go figure it out. By looking at the dedicated tabs in the PS Store app, I can see which games will be updated on the new hardware, but there is no clear or obvious indication of this in your own collection. Myself and three other members of VG247 crawled around looking for something that would help you determine this, but to no avail. Of course, this is an easy fix, but it is a very unexpected omission. You might even remember that at PS5 launch there was also no way to tell which version (native/backwards compatible) you had installed, and it seems Sony didn’t recognize that.

Both front USB connectors are USB-C, no USB-A.

The standard PS5 console—both discless and with a disc drive—has both USB-C and USB-A ports on the front. This is convenient for headset adapters, connecting a flash drive to transfer screens, adding flash drives, or charging devices.

The PS5 Pro only has USB-C on the front. That’s not a bad thing on its own, and the DualSense comes with a USB-C to USB-C cable in the box (rather than the A-to-C cable in the standard PS5 box), but it’s worth it. consider if you like to fart behind the device to insert a flash drive.

Oh, and to further confuse matters, one of the C ports supports the slower HighSpeed ​​standard (rather than SuperSpeed ​​10GB/s). So ditching USB-A altogether seems… reckless?

Works better with PS Portal than with the base PS5.

This one is more anecdotal because I didn’t have time to run tests. But you saw above how good my internet connection is (thanks, London). Previously with Portal PS in my office – right above the router and where the PS5 is connected – it was nonsense. Sometimes everything was perfect, sometimes there were terrible artifacts, sometimes the connection was completely lost. I have no idea why; I did everything in Sony’s FAQ to resolve this issue, but Portal is temperamental at the best of times.

Last night I got about two hours of solid Elden Ring Play outside of the portal with absolutely no buffering, loss of quality, lag or tearing. What? Is this related to using Pro Wi-Fi 7? In my case it hardly matters since the Pro is hardwired. I’m not complaining! I will I will now use my Portal more if there is a positive aspect to it.

It still doesn’t automatically detect a wired connection.

By the way, don’t expect PS5 Pro know when he got a network cable stuck in his back. Another frankly confusing part of the product’s design: the Pro, like Vanilla 5 before it, can’t automatically detect when it’s running over a wired connection. If you’re switching from Wi-Fi to wired (which I do since I’m happy with a PS5 in the office), you’ll need to manually log in and flip that switch yourself. Keep this in mind if you’re wondering why your download speeds are worse than usual.

The vertical stand isn’t as premium as you might expect. for £25

Small complaint, but worth saying. At this point, it’s a meme that everything about the PS5 Pro is “sold separately,” but considering the machine is already 265% more expensive than the PS5 Slim, consumers might be a little unhappy about the fact that they’ll have to fork over the cash. more Simply use the console according to the manufacturer’s instructions. After unboxing and attaching the base, I have to say that it is not as secure and durable as one might expect; you manually screw it into the bottom of the console and it still seems to flex and give a little. It stands up fine, but I think it will break under a little pressure.

Like I said, I move my console from room to room almost weekly, and this stand seems so cheap… but it doesn’t fill me with confidence.

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For a machine that costs £700 I’m a little surprised at the obstacles and problems I encountered setting it up and using it in the first few days I owned it. I’m good with consoles and technology – I do it all day, every day – so I was able to figure out and solve many of these problems myself. But I think the average consumer will be a little overwhelmed by all of this, to be honest. We are far from being able to simply make something work out of the box.

However, so far I’ve had a great time getting to grips with the software side of things. I can’t survive the Renaissance. Even Elden Ring seems more pleasant play. I loaded up Bloodborne again and lost a few hours gawking at everything and enjoying the fast loading times. I will be using my Portal 100% more now, thanks to the magic that has allowed it to “talk” to the machine better.

It’s still annoying that small but important functions are blocked. behind a £700 paywall. I’m looking forward to running Wild Monster Hunters on this machine – I believe the performance boost it will offer to Capcom’s RE Engine will be significant (and I’m sad that I didn’t get to try out the most recent beta on the Pro).

I really think I’ll enjoy using this machine once the initial kinks are ironed out, I just wish Sony would put the same thought and dedication into their user interface and software design that they put into their hardware.

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Stay tuned for more on the PS5 Pro soon, including how impressive the 8K display capabilities really are.