Pros: The build quality of the console and gamepad, their appearance, HDMI cable included. Absolutely sufficient performance to play at 1080p resolution, which is important for owners of older TVs. "Sufficient performance" is a fast, smooth and comfortable game; if the best games on the Xbox 360 "traveled", then they simply "fly" here! The gamepad is even more comfortable than on the Xbox 360... apart from the center button. Tangible weight (weight is reliability! (C)). Cons: Central button on gamepad. She moved to an unfamiliar and uncomfortable place and it became almost impossible to grope her blindly. It was not possible to transfer the account from the Xbox 360 to a flash drive, I had to download an outdated version from Live without half of the achievements. The old games, from the Xbox 360, are exactly the same as before; The increase in speed and comfort, as in the case of new games, is not felt. Comment: I thought for a long time which version of the console to take. I took a chance and took the Xbox One S. When playing on an old TV with a resolution of 1080p, I did not regret it. The prefix obviously copes with 1080p confidently. Games in the Xbox 360 version, as it turned out when switching to One S, shamelessly slowed down. Battlefield 4 on Xbox One S is not only sharper and prettier, not only faster; improved aiming to a truly comfortable level! It turned out that in the version for Xbox 360, the nightmarish aiming was not a tribute to realism, but a consequence of the hardware not meeting the requirements of the game ... The difference can be understood by this example. In the Xbox 360 version, 100 meters for more or less guaranteed headshots required me to use an SVD-class sniper rifle. At the same time, it was more difficult to see the enemy and it was necessary to aim for a long time and carefully, overcoming the viscous inertia of the virtual weapon. And on the new Xbox One S console, aiming is fast, comfortable, without inhibited inertia; headshots are now faster and easier at 100 meters with assault rifles and light machine guns than with snipers on the Xbox 360. There is no need to look for a difference - it is felt in the process and brings a lot of pleasure. Conclusion: Although there is a powerful and seductive Xbox One X in nature, an Xbox One S is enough for a game without 4K. Savings! There is also something unpleasant... A 500 GB disk turns out to be small. Very. One Forza Horizon 3 “ate” almost 60 GB. Heels of decent games - and there is almost no space left ... Meanwhile, the prefix strives to download tens of GB from Live when trying to play a new game; it seems that the game disc is perceived by the console only as an identity card, and ALL data is downloaded via the Internet. And so, if you don't want to wait three times longer to install a game, cut off the Internet when you install a new game! Let it be installed from the disk! So it will not be possible to get updates, without which they are not allowed online; but, if you play alone, the data from the disk will be enough. And updates can be downloaded later!

Well, Microsoft came to its senses in time and significantly improved its positions. Conclusions - made, measures - taken, responsible - punished: the notorious Don Mattrick is now engaged in fun farms at Zynga, and the harsh Phil Spencer rules the Xbox gaming division. Hardcore gamers can breathe a sigh of relief and consider buying an Xbox again as the new Xbox One S hits the market with all the improvements over the years. We talk about everything in a full review!

The new Xbox One S is noticeably different in design from its predecessor, and it's not even about the reduced size. Aesthetics and ergonomics come to the fore: the console looks beautiful and neat, and most importantly, it finally got rid of the huge external power supply that has been an eyesore since the Xbox 360! This bold innovation completely changed the perception: you look at a little white console, from which only HDMI and a standard power cable stick out, and you can’t believe your eyes. As if she not only became 40% more compact, but also got rid of unnecessary ballast.

There are no complaints about the quality of materials - white matte plastic (color name - Robot White) is pleasing to the eye and to the touch. In any case, it won't pick up micro-scratches as easily as the glossy black surfaces on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 cases of the first version. The assembly also inspires confidence: nothing creaks, no backlash, and in general, the body feels solid and weighty - 2.9 kg after all. Ventilation holes set an interesting topic: holes of different caliber adorn the snow-white device.

There is something from the Scandinavian design and other Bang & Olufsen in this. True, if the first Xbox One received the comic stigma of “VHS player” from caustic gamers, then the Xbox One S from the perspective from above turned out to be similar to ... a Soviet radio! As if a speaker is hiding in a round hole on top, and not a cooling fan.

By the way, according to our feelings, the noise level during the operation of the Xbox One S has become a little higher than before. Apparently, the fan of a smaller diameter and a different grille have an effect. But there are no problems with heating, despite the denser packing of the filling. If you look closely, you can see through the ventilation that the insides are cooled by a large aluminum radiator - and it does the job quite well. After a couple of hours of play, the temperature of the console is not at all a concern, even if you install it vertically. Recall that the former Xbox One could only be used in a horizontal position.

Xbox One S lived up to expectations and left only one rhetorical question: why, well, why couldn’t the console be made like this from the very beginning? This is not just “the same Xbox One, only smaller”, as it might seem at first glance. This is a thorough work on the bugs, which eliminated the main ergonomic miscalculations and made the device much more pleasant to use. In terms of technical improvements, 4K and HDR support seems to be something familiar and ordinary these days - however, everything depends on the capabilities of your TV, and the experience will vary markedly. Anyway, the Xbox One S is ready for the near future, where even toasters can upscale the image to 4K.

The cons of the console remained the same: for example, we did not like the installation of games on the HDD for too long. The power of the set-top box's GPU is rather modest, which is why multi-platform projects often come out on the Xbox One with a lower resolution. Probably, the black version is still missing for the market balance, although the white console looks very nice. But all this is easy to put up with for the sake of good games - and this time you won't have to find a place for a hefty power supply or fiddle with the "mandatory" Kinect 2.0.

The verdict is very simple: if you are buying a console from Microsoft, then you should choose the Xbox One S! If you already have an Xbox One, then it might make sense to upgrade and get nice newfangled features. Leave the first version to collectors and residents of spacious American homes, we have a much more enjoyable way to play the main exclusives of the Gears of War and Forza Horizon level.

Now we'll talk about the Xbox One S. The two most important new features compared to the regular Xbox One are the UHD disc player and HDR (High Dynamic Range) support in games. The console supports streaming/HDR, but games are limited to 1080p HD (+HDR).

The device is not as powerful as the PS4 Pro, but has other advantages and is sold at a lower price, making it a direct competitor to the PS4 Slim. The Xbox One has lagged behind the PS4 in sales since both consoles launched. How good this console is, we will find out right now.

First Impressions

The power supply is now built-in, unlike the younger brother. Console in white. One half of the box is smooth plastic, the other half is textured (with a built-in fan on top), a black drive. The Xbox One S looks incredibly cool. It looks like an attractive, but still serious gaming console, unlike, for example, the Nvidia Shield, which looks like a gaming console conceived in a teenager's dream.

The ports are located on the rear panel. The console still has an In port for cable or satellite inputs. In addition, there is HDMI Out (2.0a with HDCP 2.2), USB ports, IR (infrared) output, optical audio, and a LAN port. And, of course, the power port. No dedicated Kinect port. Kinect is no longer a key component of the Microsoft Xbox strategy.

Microsoft has made some changes to the internal hardware, but the Xbox One S isn't much faster than the Xbox One, and I think it's important to highlight this since Sony made the PS4 Pro more than twice as fast as the standard PS4.

Specifications:

CPU: 1.75GHz AMD “Jaguar” 8 cores

GPU: 1.4 teraflops, AMD Radeon 12 compute units

Memory: 8GB DDR3 RAM

Storage size: 500GB, 1TB or 2TB

For comparison, the old Xbox One could increase graphics performance by 1.31 teraflops, so there is no significant difference here. PS4 has 1.84 teraflops and the new PS4 Pro has 4.2 teraflops. In other words, games will work pretty much the same as they do on Xbox One, except that Xbox One S supports (High Dynamic Range). One detail that is very important to highlight here is that every single game needs a patch to support HDR.

Blu-ray, TV apps

In order to enjoy the UHD Blu-ray experience on Xbox One S, you first need to download the "Blu-ray App" from the Microsoft Store. The software can be constantly updated, so new features may be added soon. In a few years, the game console may even turn into streaming games, which have already appeared in services such as PlayStation Now and Geforce Now.

Ultra HD Blu-ray is one of the unique features of the Xbox One S. Over the past year, we've watched several UHD Blu-ray discs on a variety of different TVs, from mid-range to high-end. I won't go into details, but I will say that for the HDR component of a UHD Blu-ray, you need either a FALD (Full Array Local Dimming) LCD TV or a good OLED TV.

All UHD Blu-ray players must provide the same picture quality. All in all, I think the Xbox One S is a very decent UHD Blu-ray player that will move forward through software updates. Another thing I want to point out is the HDMI control of the Xbox One S. If you have a TV then the console can turn it on and off. The console includes a range of apps including Netflix, Amazon Video, HBO Now, YouTube, Hulu, Vudu, Xbox Movies, FandangoNow, and more.

I want to talk about the user interface on the Xbox One. Microsoft at the end of 2015 made significant changes to the user interface. I find the interface a bit confusing and a little too slow at times, especially considering how powerful the gaming console is.

At the top, you see the Home, Community, OneGuide, and Store tabs, but because you navigate using the up, down, left, right commands, you often lose sight of where you are. All of a sudden, you end up in a store when you try to open the shortcuts on the right side. I think it looks too messy.

I'd also like to point out that the Xbox suffers from the same "illogical hierarchical" problem that Google's Android TV has. However, Apple's tvOS feels intuitive and easy to use, even if you're using it for the first time.

The Netflix app on Xbox One S plays both 4K and HDR, unlike the PS4 Pro.

I could comment on every single app, including Hulu, Amazon, HBO Now, and the built-in media player app, but I won't, and I'll say that the Xbox One S suffers from some of the same problems as the PS4 Pro: slow app loading , limited application memory / multitasking, high power consumption.

games inHDR

Not all games are available in HDR. The first HDR game was Forza Horizon 3. I've always been a big fan of racing games. From the very beginning, you can see how Forza Horizon 3 uses the deeper colors of the HDR10 standard. While TVs today can't reproduce the full Rec.2020 color space, maxing out at DCI-P3 will give you hitherto unattainable colors like a pure red Ferrari or a strong orange Lamborghini.

Some of the tracks will take you in and out of the forest. As you drive through the landscape, you'll notice how rich the colors look and how colorful the sun is as it breaks through the treetops. You will notice how varied and realistic the landscape can look like in high dynamic range and a wider color gamut.

You can turn HDR on and off from the video settings menu on your console. The SDR version in the game looks a bit dull, lacking in intensity and ultimately realism. It's also less detailed, especially in the dark and bright parts of the image, despite the console not rendering at a higher resolution than the standard Xbox One. Bright skies just don't feel right in SDR.

    Let's finish the analysis of the appearance with not quite external elements, but rather internal ones: let's mention such an important fact that the xbox one x has cooling with a vapor chamber. This made the console the quietest on the market. Compact, powerful, quiet, and even with a built-in power supply - bravo Microsoft engineers!

    And what's inside - a comparison of the filling and characteristics

    The main advantage of the Xbox One X is a significant hardware upgrade. As a result, the power output of the console is several times higher than that of competitors on the market. Consider the characteristics in more detail:

    The performance of the Xbox One X is 6.0 Teraflops, which is not a little. If we compare these figures with the previous two consoles, then this is 4.5 times more. As you can see above, the Xbox One offers 1.23 - TFLOPS, while the S model offers 1.4 TFLOPS.

    The clock frequency of the processor is increased, and significantly. Previous models had 1.75 GHz and no more on board, but the Xbox One X managed to reach the figure of 2.3 GHz. All thanks to a custom 8-core processor based on AMD Jaguar. The GPU has been expanded to 40 blocks. Compared to the original model and xbox one s, both had 12 blocks.

    There's also more RAM in Microsoft's latest set-top box - the xbox one x has 12GB of GDDR5 built in, while the S and regular One only have 8GB of DDR3. By updating the RAM, which is used by both the system and the graphics core, as well as by the new graphics core, the set-top box supports gaming in 4K resolution with a frame rate of about sixty.

    Improvements have not bypassed the hard drive of the set-top box either. The built-in xbox one x 1 TV hard drive reads and writes 50% faster than lower models. Note that this is the merit of both the hard drive and the refinement of the entire hardware of the set-top box.

    Given the power that the Xbox One X is ready to offer, it is logical to assume that the console is "powered" accordingly - power consumption will reach up to 245W. If compared with the S model, then for it this figure is 120W. However, Microsoft representatives assure that their latest console independently selects the right amount of power depending on the load. Actually, like all modern consoles and electronic devices.

    Comparing hardware, we can say that xbox one x is the most powerful console not only in the Microsoft family, but also in the world. Remember our setting xbox one x and ps4 pro. Even the ps4 pro is inferior in some respects. However, the question is still whether to buy X or S and whether to change the original xbox for a new one. And if it is, then again we return to the first question. So let's move on.

    Field test - comparison of graphics in games

    All games on Xbox One X and Xbox One S began to look better than on the original box. Also note that the original model supports a maximum of 1080p. But 4K is available not only on Xbox one X, but also on S. It may seem that xbox one s is a better offer - the set-top box is cheaper and at the same time allows you to enjoy even the latest projects in 4K resolution. To understand if there is a difference in graphics and how big this difference is between X and S, I suggest comparing the graphics in games:

    At first glance, it might seem that there is no difference. But, starting at 0:37 seconds of the video, when the camera moves to the view from the hood, we see a difference in the reflection of the environment on the same hood. On xbox one X, the environment is reflected more clearly. How important this is and whether it is worth overpaying $200 for it is up to you. My opinion is not worth it.

    We also note that both Xbox one X and S support HDR 10. Therefore, if there is an appropriate output device, you can enjoy better graphics in games than on a regular Xbox One. As for Full HD screens, the graphics on the Xbox One X will look more attractive on them than on the original console and than on the S-version. Therefore, it is not true to say that the xbox one x is only for 4K displays. See the difference in FullHD between Xbox one X and Xbox one below:

    As you can see, the difference is more noticeable than between X and S. However, if you are not an avid graphomaniac, you will not get much less pleasure from playing on a regular Xbox one. Of course, buying a classic Xbox one is no longer worth it, but at the expense of a replacement, you should first of all think about the question of how much graphics in games are important to you personally. The answer to this question will be the answer to the question of replacement.

    Since the S and X models were endowed with 4K support and other features at the same time, you will most likely want to know why you should choose the second option. The official Microsoft website even has a section dedicated to this topic. It details what the benefits of Xbox One X are and what you pay for. There is also a list of games that look better on the Model X. This list includes: Rise of the Tomb Raider, Forza 7, Titanfall 2, Shadow of War, Gears of War 4, and Assassins Creed Origins. However, hoping for super quality on the X version is not worth it. All the games from the list, as we saw above, look not much worse on the S-version of the console. In fairness, we note that Gears of War 4, Assassins Creed Origins and Forza 7 show a stable 60 fps only on Xbox one X.

    And now Gears of War 4, but compared to Xbox one S:

    Fans of multiplayer games will benefit from knowing that the now popular game Fortnite also produces 60 fps only on the Xbox One X console. If you like such projects and you know that you will spend huge hours in them, then your motto is: "60 fps and not a frame less", then the choice between Microsoft consoles is obvious.

    Verdict

    If you still have the original Xbox One and the graphics in games are the most important thing for you, then feel free to change the console to the Xbox one X. If the graphics are not the most important thing, enjoy the games on the original Xbox one. Switching from the classic console to the Xbox one S, I think it is not advisable.

    For those who do not have a console and the choice fell on Microsoft consoles, it is worth answering only one question: are you ready to overpay for graphics? If the answer is yes, then you can safely take the Xbox One X and enjoy both an exceptionally clear picture in 4K and comfortable gaming on a FullHD screen with 60 fps in all games. We advise everyone else to save money and purchase an Xbox One S - the console is enough for modern games in FullHD and even 4K.

    Many thanks for your attention to the article. Unfortunately, the comment box is not ready yet. Therefore, if you have any questions, then leave them under a similar video on my subject. YouTube channel. I will be glad to answer all your questions.

^With approval of Citizens One Line of Credit at 0% APR and 24-month term. Subject to individual credit approval. Total payment amount from $479.76; taxes, shipping, and other charges are extra and may vary (estimated retail price with Xbox One S All-Digital Edition console; prices will vary by console and retailer). See Citizens One Line of Credit Agreement at https://www.citizensone.com/XAA for full terms and conditions.

† At participating retailers; prices vary by console. 24-month subscription to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate includes Xbox Live Gold, Xbox Game Pass for Console, Xbox Game Pass for PC, and other benefits; game catalog varies over time. Internet access required (ISP fees apply). Membership conversion: your existing Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass membership(s) will automatically convert to Ultimate at a conversion ratio, learn more . Digital Direct: Your 24-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership is delivered directly to your console during set-up and is available in Settings; no codes required. Warranty: console is under a 1 year limited hardware warranty (90 days for controller/accessories) regardless of length of financing. (Microsoft Limited Hardware Warranty: https://support.microsoft.com/warranty). upgrade: Upgrade option after the equivalent of 18 payments for the next Xbox console only, coming Holiday 2020 (excludes Xbox One X, S, and S All Digital Edition). New contract, terms, and pricing apply. Upgrading from Xbox One S All-Digital Edition will require payment of a $20 upgrade fee (subject to change). The fee will be billed by Citizens One and will be due according to the first statement issued following the upgrade. Requires return of console, controller, and power cord in good condition. The next Xbox console available under the upgrade option is subject to FCC rules and will comply with the appropriate FCC rules when available. See product and upgrade terms at .

1. Game Pass monthly subscription required; continues until cancelled. Game selection varies over time. Learn more at.

2. Xbox One S All-Digital Edition Console does not play physical discs.

3. Dolby Atmos for Headphones requires additional purchases from the Microsoft Store.

4. Some apps require app provider-specific subscriptions and/or other requirements. see.

5. HDR functionality available with supported games and TVs.

6. Online multiplayer requires Xbox Live Gold subscription (sold separately).

7. PC hardware requirements may vary for games on Windows 10.

8. Xbox One Backward Compatibility feature works with select Xbox 360 games, see . Xbox Live and broadband internet required for initial download of game to console.

9. Excludes the Xbox One S stand that works exclusively with the Xbox One S. Xbox Kinect Adapter (sold separately) required for Kinect on Xbox One S and Xbox One X.