Thu, 20 Aug 2009 2:15p.m.
Have you heard that the new PS3 Slim is out? Well it may not be all its cracked up to be!
Personally we kept the old PS2 that was big and bulky, purely because the slim ones had no space for a Hard drive and network card adapter, and we store a lot of the games on the HDD so the kids don’t break the CDs.
Rather than chip the old PS2 we just used an exploit running off the memory card which meant warranty was never voided (which turned out to be a GREAT thing when the laser assembly died!)
Anyway, I digress, back to the PS3 Slim. When the PS3 came out some ran in and grabbed, and some held back. Those with brains did the old land rush and got a hold of the PS3 Gold 60GB which is PS2 compatible and able to run the older games, unlike the 40GB which wasn’t.
It also managed to have more USB ports. Husband and I being geeks ended up with one of each (one for the kids, one for us!).
Now the PS3 slim is out, but is it really an upgrade on the current PS3?
Current models came out with a 40GB and 60GB HDD, since then we have moved up to 80GB and 120GB. These will apparently go on sale as they try and move the older stock, so keep an eye out for good deals.
The first major change you will notice is that the brand will no longer be "PLAYSTATION 3™", instead it will now be "PlayStation 3™".
Clearly that’s a sign of things to come! A few other "Features" are things such as missing on/off button on the back, the awesome futuristic touch buttons are now gone, and replaced with force feedback for the older folk who clearly haven’t moved on yet.
Because of the size difference, the card reader is no more, and we are down to 2 USB ports. You can't twist the logo around when you stand it up on its side anymore, but that’s ok because it doesn’t actually stand up on its side anymore very well, you need to purchase a base so it can do that (Not to worry, it only costs about an extra $35NZD !).
It seems the Disc Drive is noticeably louder, One user used a decibel-meter app on the iPhone, and the Slim got somewhere between 25-33dB (when playing a game), and the PS3 Fat got between 22-30dB.
It's not a huge difference, but you should remember that decibels are logarithmic, so every 3 decibels equals about double the loudness, give or take. Accuracy of an iPhone app probably should be taken into account.
When they first go on sale, they will not ship with the new firmware update (3.0 ... just like an iPhone!) , so you will have to sit through a firmware update when you first plug it in and get it online.
Sorry it will NOT play PS2 games (still), they no longer support booting Linux, they want to standardise the OS.
Okay now for the good points! If you have a Sony Bravia, it is sync capable! This means if you connect it with a Bravia Sync cable via HDMI the TV can control it with the XMB interface, even power off and on when you turn the TV on/off.
It does come with larger HDDs, however to me this isn’t really a huge factor as its pretty easy to upgrade the HDD on them anyway. All of our PS3 at home are already a 320GB or larger. For game play, its pretty much still a PS3 and does the same bog standard thing it did before. Oh except it’s smaller.
Overall, my summery seems to imply that we will not be upgrading this time around. Sorry Sony, I want something I can use a little more. The size really doesn't count in this case; I prefer features, and usability.