That’s right folks, these things are finally starting to trickle out to the public. I was able to get my hands on one, take it home, and give it the once over. These are just some of the things that you will find, should you be able to locate one yourself.
Upon taking it out of the box the first thing you will obviously notice is it’s size. Yes, calling it the 360 Slim isn’t such a bad idea. It is about 2 inches shorter in height, not counting the HDD sitting on top of the old box, and about the same in thickness. The newer slim probably weights about a pound or two less as well. As most of you all know it is in a glossy black finish, and despite what some think it can lay horizontal as well as standing vertical.
When the system is laying horizontal there is now a HUGE fan on the top (relatively speaking) and I would guess this coupled with the fact that it has almost a concave shell should limit the overheating problems. As said before they have eliminated the RROD issues simply by taking out the “Red Rings” that used to show up. According to a Microsoft PR guy, if the system does fail (heaven forbid) the center, as in just the green dot in the middle, will show red. So I guess the RROD wil be replace with the RDOD (Red Dot Of Doom?).
The front of the box is set up for the most part like the old 360. The first thing you will probably notice is the fact that the memory card slots aren’t present anymore. That was explained by Microsoft as “since we now allow flash drives that are larger than the 520mb cards, there is no need to have the slots anymore.” Which makes sense, unless you have just an Arcade unit and that was all you were using for your data, cause now how do you get your save files to the new box? Ruh Roh.
Also along the front, they have shifted the front two USB ports to a horizontal orientation (when laying the system itself horizontal). The power and eject buttons are no longer ”buttons” at all. They now respond with just a touch, similar to how the original PS3 buttons worked. The eject “button” also makes a little “bleep” sound every time it is “pushed.” It adds nothing to the system itself, but it sounds kinda cool.
Shifting to the back of the box, there have been a lot of changes here, especially if you are like me and had the pre-HDMI units. There are now three USB ports on the back. This is apparently to be more accommodating for those with wired peripherals. Also on the back is the standard Ethernet port as well as the A/V out port. New for most 360 owners is the HDMI port. Obviously this was on several other more limited edition units, but it’s new to me. New for EVERYONE is the aux power port. This is to make the system “Kinect Ready”. Basically all that means is that you can plug the camera directly into the system itself, rather than having to find another spot for the Kinect’s power brick, as you will have to with the oler units. You will also notice that the console’s power brick is a bit smaller, and weighs slightly less. If I remember correctly, the new system itself uses somewhere around 10% less power than the original. Microsoft has also added an optical audio output port for those audiophiles out there.
Besides the look of the system and the size, the absolute biggest difference you will notice is the noise, or lack there of. They kept saying at the press conference and the subsequent meetings that the system is whisper quiet. It is honestly surprising just HOW quiet it is. Seriously, this thing is damn near perfectly silent. Hell, my DVR hard drive spinning is louder than the new 360. Even with a disc in, actively playing a game, the new Slim 360 is still half as loud as the older version. I can explain it to you all day long but until you actually hear it for yourself you can’t truly appreciate it.
I think it is important to point out that if you have one of the more recent editions of the 360 (pre-slim) you probably don’t NEED to trade up. I traded in mine because it made sense to me. My current 360 is out of warranty, I only have a 60gb hard drive, and my system has already “Red Ringed” once. As I posted earlier last week, Gamestop is running a big deal right now with trade ins towards a new system. What I found out when I picked up my own system is that they ARE taking pre-orders for the new Slim. The big issue now is that they will probably be on back order until July, at the earliest. So good luck to everyone out there that wasn’t lucky enough to snag a system day one. If you have to upgrade, if you can find one, it’s worth the price for what you get. Let’s just hope that they don’t start crapping out in a couple months. Hey if they do, at least the casket will be a bit smaller, right?
**Update**
For those asking and interested, the previous transfer cable does still work. I was able to transfer over my 60gb HDD to the new 250gb HDD no problem. You can even go in and select/de-select items you don’t care to bring over. Remember, however, that when you transfer all previous data on the drive is wiped out. ALL DATA.
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