The new Xbox has been unveiled at E3 2016 and leaks have revealed it will be a thinner and more powerful version of the Xbox One. For now the Xbox One S’s improvements over the original are best exemplified in another realms of the entertainment space. 2TB version, which is also called the launch edition, will be the first to arrive at retailers on August 2 at $399.
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So, are you excited to get a new Xbox One S?
It is the first console to support 4K video streaming – double the resolution of HD.
Rather than being an entirely new console, the Xbox One S is purportedly a “sleeker, slimmer and sharper” version of the existing Xbox One platform, packing more power and technical prowess despite being significantly smaller in size.
That’s due to the console’s GPU being overclocked from 853MHz to 914MHz in the Xbox One S, resulting in improved compute performance (up from 1.31TF to 1.4TF) and ESRAM Bandwidth, which increases from 204GB/s to 219GB/s.
Only time will tell. I assume it works as advertised, but can’t speak to the merits of the Ultra HD Blu-ray Player app you have to download (it’s free) from the Xbox Store.
That being said, if you really must use Kinect, you will still be able to connect one using a USB adapter to plug it into the USB port on the console. Xbox One S is still a larger console than its Sony competitor, but it houses a larger cooling assembly and put simply, a larger fan spinning more slowly makes less noise. I still need to dig into its slight software changes, how Xbox One games run in upscaled 4K, and how 4K content looks running on the Xbox One S. In the meantime, please feel free to let me know what you’d like to know about the Xbox One S in our Chatty or send me a message on Twitter. The feature is supported on our Panasonic DX750, and at range, it’s definitely better for gaming than both the Xbox One S and indeed the DX750’s own standard upscaler.
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The console also comes high dynamic range (HDR) ready, meaning it has a higher contrast range between light and dark, making for better images. Seen as a huge plus point, this could have a dramatic effect on games and video playback. The new console not only brings 40% smaller body, but also has other improvements and additions. The power brick that came with the Xbox One was massive and that alone reduces the footprint the system will leave in your living room by quite a bit. For more information about the system then you can check out its official website. The Xbox One S is great, but it’d be nicer if this wasn’t a stopgap wonder console meant to hold us over.
