At Apple’s keynote on 12 September 2017, the new Apple TV 4K was announced. The new device will feature the powerful six-core A10X Fusion chip, 3GB of RAM and, most importantly, will have support for 4K HDR content.
Here’s everything you need to know about the all new Apple TV 4K.
New Apple TV 4K: At a glance
- Available on 22 September 2017
- £139 ($179) for 32GB
- £179 ($199) for 64GB
- 4K HDR support
- 64-bit A10X Fusion chip
- 3GB of RAM
- Will run the latest version tvOS
New Apple TV 4K: UK price and release date
The fourth-generation Apple TV was released in 2015, and costs £139 for the 32GB version and £179 for the 64GB. On 12 September 2017, Apple dropped the price of the 32GB model to £113 ($149).
The new Apple TV 5th-gen starts at £139 for the 32GB variant and £179 for the 64GB model. Given 4K content takes up a lot more space on a drive, we are surprised that Apple decided against a higher capacity model. The 5th-gen Apple TV 4K will be available on 22 September 2017 from the Apple Store.
New Apple TV 4K: 4K HDR
The headline feature is 4K HDR support. The new Apple TV 4K supports both HDR10 and Dolby Vision. This makes it a compelling option for those wanting to watch Ultra HD 4K content on their televisions. The support for both HDR10 and Dolby Vision is a welcome addition - as this opens up the device to a wider array of movies.
HDR10 and Dolby Vision drastically improve colour accuracy, contrast ratio and peak brightness levels. With a compatible HDR television, the image quality and resolution will be a lot better. If you’re looking for a TV, take a look for our roundup of the best TV deals in the UK right now.
New Apple TV 4K: Specs
4K HDR content isn’t easy to play back – it’s hard enough for the Xbox One S games console to smoothly playback 4K content, so you can imagine the horsepower you need.
We expect a serious bump up in hardware. Thankfully, the new Apple TV 4K will pack a three-core Apple A10X Fusion processor and 3GB of RAM. This delivers two times the performance over the 2015 model and grants four times the GPU performance - at the keynote event, Apple demonstrated how the Apple TV 4K could smoothly run games.
The latest version of tvOS ships with the Apple TV 4K, and this will allow you to stream TV shows, sports games and movies in glorious Ultra HD 4K. Previous Apple TV owners will be glad to know that their SDR movies will be HDR-ready, for free.
For UK users, the TV app, which was previously exclusive to US residents, is now available. Unfortunately, there are no updates to the Apple Remote - as it was tipped it would come with 3D Touch.