With no fanfare whatsoever, Apple has announced a new version of the Apple TV 4K. Perhaps the subdued nature of the launch reflects the fairly subtle nature of the hardware upgrade. As you can probably tell from the image above, the design of the new Apple TV is more or less identical to that of last year's model, and it comes with essentially the same Siri remote (USB-C charging has been added), which navigates the same tvOS 16 operating system.
So what's changed? The headline is a processor upgrade to the A15 Bionic, which was introduced with last year's iPhone 13 and is actually still at the heart of the new iPhone 14. Having a chip that's just one year old is pretty big news for an Apple TV device – the 2021 Apple TV 4K's A12 Bionic launched with 2018's iPhone Xs, after all.
Apple says that the new chip results in "greater responsiveness, faster navigation, and snappier UI animations". Perhaps the apparent 30 per cent increase in GPU performance is more telling, though, as this results in smoother gameplay, potentially indicating a more game-focused future for the Apple TV.
The new Apple TV 4K is available to order now, with deliveries starting on 4th November. Pricing starts at £149 / $129 / $219 – surprisingly lower than the £169 / $179 / AU$249 launch price of the 2021 model. That price gets you the model with 64GB of internal storage. The 128GB version will set you back £169 / $149 / AU$249.
Interestingly, the 64GB version is wi-fi only: only the 128GB model has an ethernet port (a Gigabit ethernet port, in fact). This seems a real shame. If you're into the Apple TV for movies rather than games, you don't need 128GB of storage, but you may well want the ethernet port for faster and smooth movie streaming.
For what it's worth, last year's Apple TV 4K had only 32GB and 64GB options, but both had ethernet ports.
How about last year's model? Here's our Apple TV 4K (2021) review
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