A Stick, a Console and a TV Line: What Actually Happened to These Three Prices in 2026

Two of the three names in this comparison are not products anyone sells, and nobody cross-shops a streaming stick against a games console. What they share is a 2026 price that moved.

Two of the three names in the original headline are not products. Sony has never sold a console called the PlayStation 5 Slim; that is shorthand shoppers and reporters attached to the CFI-2000 hardware revision of November 2023. Hisense’s U8 is a line that takes a new suffix every model year, currently the U8QG in the United States. Only the Roku Streaming Stick 4K is a name you can actually order. Nobody weighs a 79.99 dollar stick against a 649 dollar console against a television, so this is about the one thing all three genuinely share: a price that moved in 2026.

Key facts

• Roku Streaming Stick 4K went from 49.99 to 79.99 dollars in July 2026, a 60 percent rise
• Sony’s own US store on 1 September 2026: 649, 599 and 899 dollars, all three listed Currently Unavailable
• The newer 59.99 dollar Roku Streaming Stick Plus has no Dolby Vision
• FlatpanelsHD measured over 4,000 nits on a 10 percent window on the set sold here as the U8QG
• Hisense’s own US product pages returned 404 on 1 September 2026, so no Hisense price is quoted here

What Sony and Hisense actually call the things in this headline

Sony’s direct store lists three consoles by name: PlayStation 5 Console – 1 TB at 649 dollars, PlayStation 5 Digital Edition Console – 825 GB at 599 dollars, and PlayStation 5 Pro Console – 2 TB at 899 dollars. Wikipedia’s PlayStation 5 article is explicit that the CFI-2000 machines are colloquially referred to as the PlayStation 5 Slim, and that Sony announced them only as revised models of the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition. Some outlets, FlatpanelsHD among them, still use the slim shorthand in headlines. Sony’s storefront never has.

Hisense is a different kind of naming problem. On the company’s US site on 1 September 2026, the U8 in the range is the U8QG, marketed as MiniLED Pro with a claimed peak of up to 5000 nits. The recent chain runs U8K, then U8N, then U8Q in Europe and U8QG in the United States. A price or a brightness measurement taken from one suffix does not transfer to the next, which is why a review of the U8 with no suffix and no model year is not a review of anything.

Roku is the exception. The Streaming Stick 4K, model 3820R, is a real product with a live page on Roku’s own site, and it was not discontinued in the May 2025 stick reshuffle that brought the Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick Plus. It survives as the only sub-100-dollar Roku stick with Dolby Vision.

Roku’s oldest 4K stick took the biggest increase in the line

Roku raised prices across its entire player range in July 2026, with coverage published on 24 and 25 July. The Streaming Stick 4K took the largest percentage jump of anything in the lineup. A Roku executive, speaking on background, told The Desk the cause was shortages in computer memory and other components caused by the artificial intelligence rush, with memory makers redirecting capacity toward higher-margin data-centre chips. Android Police noted the irony that Roku’s chief executive Anthony Wood had publicly argued Roku OS needs far less memory than its competitors, and Roku still had to raise prices.

The awkward consequence sits inside Roku’s own range. The Streaming Stick Plus, launched in May 2025 at 39.99 dollars and now 59.99, is the newer and cheaper 4K stick, but it supports only HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG. Dolby Vision is exclusive to the older Streaming Stick 4K and the Roku Ultra. A buyer who wants Dolby Vision on a Roku for under 100 dollars has exactly one option, and it is the one that just went up 60 percent.

• Roku Streaming Stick: 29.99 to 39.99 dollars
• Roku Streaming Stick Plus: 39.99 to 59.99 dollars
• Roku Streaming Stick 4K: 49.99 to 79.99 dollars
• Roku Ultra: 99.99 to 149.99 dollars
• Roku Streambar SE: 99.99 to 149.99 dollars

Two Sony increases in eight months, neither of them buying you anything

In August 2025 Sony raised the price of every PS5 unit in the United States by 50 dollars, citing a challenging economic environment. On 2 April 2026 it raised prices again, globally, with the US Digital Edition going up another 50 dollars and the Pro another 150, this time citing the global economic landscape. Neither increase added a feature. Set against the November 2020 launch prices, the Digital Edition has gone from 399 to 599 dollars, the disc console from 499 to 649, and the Pro from 699 at its November 2024 release to 899. Consoles have historically become cheaper across a generation.

Availability is the second half of the story. All three models showed as Currently Unavailable on Sony’s own store on 1 September 2026, with the disc console additionally marked Coming Soon. FlatpanelsHD reported on 31 August 2026 that the PS5 Pro was sold out across the United States and in many European countries, attributing the surge to a Grand Theft Auto VI preview released on Netflix on 28 August 2026, and flagging supply risk heading into the holidays. Any article that tells you to buy one at a given price owes you a stock caveat.

What FlatpanelsHD measured on the set Hisense sells here as the U8QG

FlatpanelsHD reviewed the U8Q, the European name for the television sold in the United States as the U8QG, on 3 October 2025. The measured figures: over 4,000 nits on a 10 percent window, just over 2,000 nits on a 1 percent window, and nearly 900 nits full-screen. The 65-inch review sample carried 1,092 miniLED dimming zones, slightly more than TCL’s C8K and roughly three times the Samsung QN90F. Input lag came in around 21 to 22 milliseconds, which the outlet called slightly higher than the fastest sets; the same reviewer measured an LG C5 at 10.8 milliseconds at 4K60.

The verdict was one of the best miniLED LCD televisions currently available, with reservations. Zone dimming was described as aggressive and visible more often than expected, producing blooming around subtitles and bright elements and halos in menus with white text on black backgrounds. The reviewer’s workaround was to set local dimming to Low. Spread 1,092 zones across a 65-inch panel and each zone covers roughly four square inches, which is why halos persist on a set that measures well.

We are not quoting a Hisense price. The company’s own product and shop URLs returned 404 to fetches on 1 September 2026, and the manufacturer’s up-to-5000-nits figure is a marketing peak, not a usable measurement. Check a retailer by hand on the day you buy.

Timing a hardware purchase while component prices are still moving

This is not a Roku story or a Sony story. Apple raised the Apple TV 4K on 26 June 2026 to 199 and 249 dollars, increases of 54 and 67 percent, the steepest percentage rise of any Apple product in that round. Amazon lifted the entire Fire TV Stick line without any public announcement, reported on 21 August 2026, taking the 4K Max from 59.99 to 84.99. Google raised the Google TV Streamer from 100 to 150 dollars on 31 August 2026. Nintendo raised the Switch 2 from 449.99 to 499.99 effective today. The stated cause is consistent across most of them: memory and storage costs pulled upward by AI data-centre demand.

Two practical consequences follow. First, list price and street price have come apart. When Roku’s increase landed the company was still running a temporary sale at the old prices on its own store with a three-unit purchase limit, and Best Buy and Amazon were still moving legacy stock at pre-increase prices. Second, if the stick plugged into your television still works, 2026 is a poor year to replace it. Nothing in the current Roku, Fire TV or Apple TV lineup offers a capability worth a 30 to 100 dollar premium over what you already own.

Sources: ecoustics · The Desk · PlayStation Direct · FlatpanelsHD · Hisense USA