Xbox 360 slim hardware thread

[Rangers]

I'll post a couple to start it off, Gamespot confirms Arcade lives on, and Engadget unboxes.

I like the new unit, a little unsure on touch buttons, I find them disconcerting on my Blu Ray player, I always want to jam them like a regular button. A little unsure on the glossy finish, but I think I like that (funny how Ps3 and 360 reversed there, PS3 glossy>matte, 360 matte>glossy). Love the built in wi-fi, even though I wont use it. The lack of an HDMI cable is uncalled for, I honestly think retail and hardware companies must be involved in some sort of racket to sell overpriced HDMI cables. BTW, does one of the new or upcoming PS3 models include an HDMI cable, or is it my imagination? Anyway it's ridiculous todays consoles no longer come with the actual cable you need to plug it in (to the majority of TV's anyway, yes I think today most people buying 360 have an HDTV, though I'm, sure somebody will argue that). They should definitely include both SD and HD cables.

Oh also the power brick is still much bigger than I'd like from the Engadget unboxing. I assumed they'd have that down to almost nothing.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Looks nice.

There is an AUX connector on the back that almost like a USB port but isn't. For Natal perhaps, or something else? Also has more USB ports than my launch 360.

And rubber feet for horizontal positioning, maybe it's still stackable (crossing fingers).

Regards,
SB

PS - typing this from work, darn Japanese keyboards all the punctuation keys in the wrong place.

 

[(((interference)))]

Fantastic redesign, looks like a more menacing black Wii

It looks more like a PS3 slim than the actual PS3 slim does!
The glossy black and silver theme is a Sony hallmark, i'm quite surprised at how unabashedly MS is aping this, it's like Sony designed the PSP -> PS3 -> Xbox 360 slim

Don't like touch sensitive buttons though, take ages to activate and most technophobes can't figure out how to use them.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Don't like touch sensitive buttons though, take ages to activate and most technophobes can't figure out how to use them.

Heh, buttons on my X360 never get touched anyways, everything operated from the Harmony Remote, including ejecting of disks.

Regards,
SB

 

[AzBat]

I love the redesign myself. Almost convinced myself to trade in my Elite for one, but I think I'll save my money for Kinect. Anybody notice on the hard drive that they're still using some kind of end-user casing for the drive? I smell new hard drive upgrades for retail. Takes a small step toward the PS3 style without losing ease of use for those scared to buy a bare drive. We'll have to see if they ever support drives off the shelf, but my thinking is no.

BTW, anybody say if the remote infrared sensor is still there? Can't see it for the glossy black color.

Tommy McClain

 

[Rangers]

I love the redesign myself. Almost convinced myself to trade in my Elite for one, but I think I'll save my money for Kinect. Anybody notice on the hard drive that they're still using some kind of end-user casing for the drive? I smell new hard drive upgrades for retail. Takes a small step toward the PS3 style without losing ease of use for those scared to buy a bare drive. We'll have to see if they ever support drives off the shelf, but my thinking is no.

BTW, anybody say if the remote infrared sensor is still there? Can't see it for the glossy black color.

Tommy McClain

I believe they've confirmed they dont support normal HDD's.

I dont see it that big an issue, 250GB ought to be plenty, especially for a console more designed around streaming media like 360.

 

[Kaotik]

TBH in teh engadget unpacking video, only thing separating it from normal (2.5" though?) seemed to be the casing around the HDD, the back at least to me looked like standard SATA-HDD, so it could be possible just to throw in any HDD in it's place with some support to keep it "steady"

 

[rabidrabbit]

Funny how they took what was hated in PS3 fat's design, and put them into the new xbox360, glossy black and touch controls
I don't hate them, I like them in my PS3. Maybe it was just teh Interweb that hated them

 

[BRiT]

I saw that too; It seems like a normal 2.5" SATA HDD in a form-fitted clamshell. Unless MS relaxes the restriction of the security sectors (3 key sectors are digitally signed) and the need for custom firmware on the HDD it wont be user upgradable, unfortunately. I do expect to see the XBox360 hacking community to start making a few adapters once the slims are available; one to be able to use older HDDs and one to plug the new HDD into older consoles

For those who don't know, the old-style HDD caddies contain a standard 2.5" HDD with slightly custom firmware and an adapter cable from standard SATA to XBox360 HDD Plug.

 

[DieH@rd]

So, can we now put standard 2.5" HDD in the new "slim" arcade [when its out]?

 

[Arwin]

Well, it's definitely a machine I can get behind, though with minimal shrinkage it's still slightly disappointing they didn't manage to get the brick in there. Other than that though it's a big step up from what they had. Is there any news if they upgraded the internal network connector as well to 1GB though?

 

[rabidrabbit]

Is the official name for the new Xbox 360
Xbox360 S?
I think I saw that on the label in the back of the machine.

 

[Grall]

with minimal shrinkage it's still slightly disappointing they didn't manage to get the brick in there.

Somewhat yes, I have to agree. The redesign looks good though, not super duper perhaps (the diagonal vents on the side aren't particulary flattering IMO), but I like it. It's certainly a step up from what they got currently, AND the stupid bathtub tray for the HDD is gone! I've still got sticky glue stuck to the chrome bits of my launch day tray from the protective tape MS saw fit to put on it. Jeezus.

So, I'd give it 7/10 overall. I'd preferred a slot-in drive rather than a stinking tray, of course. If they'd gone all the way instead of cheaping out on us again that'd bumped it up at least another point.

if they upgraded the internal network connector as well to 1GB though?

They didn't brag about it, so they probably didn't. Doesn't really matter though, as 100mbit/s is more than enough for anything the 360 needs... Streaming video doesn't take that much bandwidth, and pretty much no internet servers actually deliver ~100mbit/s even if your connection is rated at that speed (like if you got a fiber link for example). So it's not anything worth complaining about methinks. It'd just be a checkbox feature on the packaging.

 

[woundingchaney]

They didn't brag about it, so they probably didn't. Doesn't really matter though, as 100mbit/s is more than enough for anything the 360 needs... Streaming video doesn't take that much bandwidth, and pretty much no internet servers actually deliver ~100mbit/s even if your connection is rated at that speed (like if you got a fiber link for example). So it's not anything worth complaining about methinks. It'd just be a checkbox feature on the packaging.

What about hidef content via the 360 as a media center extender? Hi-def video is becoming more and more prevalent in camcorders and other video content in general.

 

[Arwin]

What about hidef content via the 360 as a media center extender? Hi-def video is becoming more and more prevalent in camcorders and other video content in general.

That was my thought also. I'm going to upgrade my network soon, as literally everything connected to it (including my internet cable box, which currently runs a 20Mbit line, but can already go up to 120Mbit, plus my wifes PC, my PC, my Mac Mini, my work laptop, and my PS3) connects using 1GBit now, except my 360. Would be a nice bonus if the Slim gets a 1GB network adapter as well. If not, no big loss - it's currently some ways off from becoming our primary multi-media player anyway.

 

[BRiT]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong (might be mistaken on the units), but I think the highest video profile BluRay titles are barely in the 40-60 mbit range during fast-action scenes. Add in some buffering of the stream and 100mbit should cover it fine.

Yup, the technical spec lists a MAX Video Bitrate of 40.0 Mbps (megabits) then you need to throw in the Audio Bitrates. For BD-ROM movies they require a transfer rate of 54 Mbps total. This was taken from http://www.blu-ray.com/faq/

 

[Arwin]

I think you're probably right actually ...

 

[Grall]

What about hidef content via the 360 as a media center extender?

Over copper wiring this won't be a problem...at ALL. Not with current HD video anyway, in case we'll ever see a "quad-rez full-HD" movie standard then we'd need to worry. Then again, this gen of consoles would hopefully be well obsoleted by then.

With wireless I would be somewhat concerned. If this xbox supports N-standard wifi over 5GHz (like the external dongle supported A-standard at 5GHz) it could work...maybe. I'm not sure how fast speeds N-wifi really gets in a typical real-life situation. You'd probably need to transcode full bitrate BR movies down to something less demanding or there'd be a hella lot of frame drop-outs during busy high-bitrate scenes I can imagine.

 

[Svensk Viking]

Any specific reason to why MS didn't make it so that the current 360's HDDs work on the Slim?

 

[BRiT]

Style and Form Factor I'd imagine. There's just no good looking way to strap the old wart onto the new.