Apple is announcing a new Apple TV 4K today — A19 chip, ships Oct 30. Worth upgrading from the 2022 model?
Apple is expected to announce the fourth-generation Apple TV 4K today at its Welcome home event in New York. The reported specs: A19 chip (up from the A15 in the 2022 model), ships October 30, US starting price now $199 (it went up from $129 earlier this year on memory costs), Wi-Fi 7 via the new N1 chip, and they have tested a Siri Remote with a speaker so you can find it in the couch. First hardware refresh since 2022. I have the 2022 box and it still streams everything fine. Specific question: is there any actual living-room reason to upgrade — something the A19 enables that the A15 genuinely cannot do — or is this a skip-and-wait year?
1 answer
- Skip it unless you game — streaming will not look better
I have been watching this refresh like a hawk because my 2022 box is fine but I love new gadgets, and here is my honest take after reading all the leaks: skip it unless you game on the Apple TV. The A19 jump is huge on paper but streaming Netflix and YouTube looks identical on an A15 — those apps do not need more chip. The one real reason to care is if you use Apple Arcade games or want the smarter Siri stuff they keep teasing, because 8 to 12GB of RAM versus 4GB is the only spec that will actually feel different. At $199 instead of $129, the math is worse than last time. Keep the $200, wait for the first holiday sale, and check whether the speaker-remote even ships before you get excited.