Our pick
This version of the PS5 has a disc drive so you can watch UHD Blu-ray movies, as well as play new, or used PS5 and PS4 game discs. The rest of the features and hardware are the same.
If you have a big collection of physical PlayStation 4 games, if you want to watch 4K Blu-ray discs on your console, or if you’re a deal hunter looking for discounted new and used games on disc, you should get the standard PlayStation 5 so that you can use its UHD Blu-ray drive.
Also great
The Digital Edition doesn’t include a disc drive, so you can’t watch Blu-rays or take advantage of new or used games, or old PS4 discs. But if you’re comfortable going all digital, it has the same graphics, CPU, memory, and storage hardware as the standard PS5.
The PlayStation 5 Digital Edition costs a hundred dollars less, and other than its lack of a UHD Blu-ray drive, it does everything the standard version does. If you don’t want to spend $500 on a new console, if you don’t buy or watch movies on UHD Blu-ray, or if you don’t care about disc-based games, the Digital Edition might make more sense, especially for anyone who takes advantage of a PlayStation Plus game subscription.
4K represents the current standard in high-definition video, with 3840×2160 pixels—four times the resolution of 1080p, the previous standard.
Most of PlayStation’s biggest games in 2022 came to the PS4, including Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, and God of War: Ragnarok. But Sony has already made a case for the PS5 with high-profile exclusive games like Returnal and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and we’re starting to see more and more games that take advantage of the PS5’s upgrades. If you have spent a lot of time with your PlayStation 4 and are ready for immediately noticeable improvements in console boot times and game loading, as well as some performance and visual improvements in the games you already have, you can get all of that on a PlayStation 5 right now and leave virtually none of your PlayStation 4 library behind.