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Dell XPS L501x: An Excellent Mainstream Notebookby Jarred Walton on 11/10/2010 12:01 AM EST
95 Comments
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FearoftheNight - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkBought my macbook pro back when pc notebooks were dull and lame and vista had just come out. Glad to see viable and very reasonably priced alternatives to Apple now that my laptop is getting old! :) Reply
fabarati - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkActually, Assuming you mean really early 2007, Asus still had som bitchin' business laptops, like the W3, the V6 and the W7. Reply
blackrook - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkNow I've got a twinge of buyers remorse from my Envy 14 purchase. I'd love to see a comparison between the Radiance screen with this one, as well as the HD5650 vs. the 420m. Reply
FearoftheNight - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkDidn't they discontinue the Radiance? Reply
blackrook - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkYes. Rumor has it they're going to be back in stock sometime in December. Whether they'll be the same screen (since the company that manufactured them went out of business) remains to be seen.
The Radiance screen went from essentially a $100 upgrade to $200 to $300 until it was taken off altogether. I wonder whether the price for this screen will go up too. $130 is a steal. Reply
PlasmaBomb - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkDell are looking £170 (inc. taxes) for the R+BG 1080p screen in the UK :(
Taking off taxes and converting to dollars thats ~$231.50
Rip Off.. Reply
khimera2000 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkisint all electronics overpriced in the UK to begin with??? Reply
BarkHumbug - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - link"isint all electronics overpriced in the EU to begin with???"
There, fixed it. Reply
erple2 - Friday, November 12, 2010 - link$231.50 for the single most important thing on your laptop? I don't think that's even remotely close to a ripoff. Particularly given how stunningly superior the screen is to every other 720p screen that most laptop companies pass off to consumers. Reply
Rasterman - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkRead the last paragraph in the review. Reply
Goblerone - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkStill waiting for clarification for why the GTX 580 review compared against reference clocked competitor cards whereas the Radeon 6870 review compared against factory overclocked cards.
Cool thanks! Reply
The_Assimilator - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkMaybe because there weren't any overclocked GTX 580s available at launch? And please, stop with the whining about the comparisons. Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkBecause everyone complained about the use of an overclocked card so Ryan and Anand chose to not use any overclocked cards in future comparisons. I thought that was pretty clear, in light of all the complaining that occurred, and the overclocked results for 6850 are available. Besides, GTX 580 is going up against 6900 next month or whenever, and that will be the real comparison.
As I see it, imagine NVIDIA came out with GTX 560 right now, instead of AMD with the 6800. Imagine AMD's partners had a ton of highly overclocked 5870 parts and we put one in as a reference point for what the competition could do. Then we concluded that the GTX 560 was still a good card and worth purchasing, based on power and performance and price, but that the overclocked 5870 was highly competitive. That's basically what happened in reverse, and I'm still surprised at how upset people got.
But this is neither the time nor the place for that discussion so I'd appreciate it if we could avoid bringing up separate articles that have nothing to do with this review.
Or if you want another example, imagine I reviewed an ASUS laptop, and in the conclusion I put the whole package into the grand scheme of the market. What if I then said that while the performance was good, other factors were so neglected that need work. Or what if I discussed something like a MacBook, Envy, etc. in a review of a Dell laptop? The horror!
Personally, I view my job as a journalist/hardware reviewer to be one of coming up with the best recommendations, regardless of manufacturer. If HP suddenly priced the Envy 14 at $850 just to compete with the L501x, but it was a limited time offer, I'd still happily mention the option in my review. Giving more detail and points of reference has never been a bad thing to me (unless it gets to the point where my graphs become unwieldy of course). That's my two cents, for what it's worth. Reply
Evil_Sheep - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkActually the Envy 14 was dropped to $850 about a week ago in a limited time deal (already expired), only available through Logicbuy. It was actually a $400 off coupon on any config over $1250, which meant some decent specs as well.
I wouldn't be surprised to see more offers like this from HP in the future to keep them competitive, especially after disappointments like the loss of the Radiance panel and, on the Beats edition, the removal of the included headphones. Reply
khimera2000 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkIsint this already covered??? its like beeting a dead horse for a week strait. they goofed, and now there doing there best to make up for it. thats all i need. Reply
erple2 - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkI'm also waiting for clarification about the global economic recovery plan put forth by the G20 Summit meeting in S. Korea! Reply
a1trips - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkI didn't weigh into the debate earlier but i would tend to support your position that all information must be given the reader on the assumption that they are mature adults who can make up their own minds.
I still don't see what the hullabaloo was about regarding the overclocked card and i thought those who didn't care were in the majority, but that's just my take.
~atr Reply
Osamede - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkLet's face it Dell still doesnt get it. Shipping a 15" unit with a 6 cell battery that isnt going to last all that long is no good. And the "option" of a 9-cell that sticks out like a sore thumb is just outdated.
I'm no Apple fan but at least they understand that a quality laptop is one that doesnt leave you worrying about your battery AND doesnt have huge lumps sticking out of it.
In any case this 15" brick unit is a sideshow and is no change really, as Dell has always had 15" units with a decent screen that were ugly like this one.
The real point where we will know that PC makers are actually interested in upping their game is when they start producing lightweight laptops at 13" or 14" that have top notch screens. At that point we can discuss. But really only Sony is making a play there. The rest are jokers, Dell included. Reply
strikeback03 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkThere are plenty of users for whom 3-4 hours of battery life is plenty, as they use the system mostly as a DTR and not on the go. No point in making the system large enough to hold the 9 cell battery when a large number of users don't need that capacity.
Better battery life by default in Windows would be nice, but if it is a choice between having all the varied hardware available and better battery life tweaks I would definitely take the hardware choices. I also don't consider Apple's integrated battery to be at all an option. Reply
pieterjan - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkThis thing must be the ugliest notebook Dell ever pooped out. Okay, it has some aluminum panels, but so do street poles. Reply
cknobman - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkI agree completely.
This notebook is bfugly, big and fat!!!!!! Reply
JohnMD1022 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkSeagate drive?
I'll pass.
Just had another bad one pass thru the shop. Reply
vant - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkAre you kidding me? This is quite possibly one of the ugliest laptops I've seen in a while. I seriously feel like no one at Dell's design team is younger than 50. Just look at the first picture posted and tell me thats not more hideous than a puddle of urine.
At least the previous XPS had leather and modern styling. This seriously looks like 'hey we need some high quality materials and Apple like design cues!' but then they just f*ed up everything in the process of getting it to market.
Seriously, with a design like that you can stuff two quad core i7s (desktop of course), 16GB of RAM, a GTX480, 200+ ppi display, a $1k price tag and NO ONE WOULD BUY IT.
Dell, HP, Toshiba, ASUS, etc.: They all need a wake up call and realize that their products are being used in the public at coffee shops, not in private homes. We have to use these products around people who look at us. We need products that look modern and work well with our mobile lifestyles. That means we need LIGHTWEIGHT, SMALL FORM FACTOR (thin would be nice), and LARGE AMOUNTS OF BATTERY LIFE.
The average user doesn't need a Core i7 on their laptops, the average user needs 12 hours of battery life instead. We don't need 420Ms, we need laptops that will actually fit in our backpacks (without making us look like we are carrying an animal).
How companies are still losing market share while putting trash products like these to market and surviving is baffling. They will continue to bleed until death or change. Their choice.
I'd like to take this time to also point out that copying the competition gets you nowhere. Innovating is where the money is. Reply
barnett25 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkAre you sure you are talking about the "average user" and not just yourself?
Cause I have no need for a thin and light laptop. I've got a smartphone for that. If your spending all your time at starbucks showing off you should get a Mac.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they should not make thin and lights, just that not every computer has to be one. Reply
nafhan - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkUhm, I'd say your wrong, there are some people who need 12 hours of battery life, but it's not the "average" user. The average user is rarely going to take their laptop out of the house/dorm, and when they do, it's going to be to a coffee shop or something. I also think there's still a few people out there who aren't going to pay an extra $800 to make sure their PC is pretty. Reply
strikeback03 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkUmm, yeah, I would say you fit the target market for a Mac exactly. But that is not the "average user". I have had one laptop or another for 11 years, and have used one in a coffee shop maybe 5 times (when meeting with clients). And I certainly have never needed 12 hours of battery life, I've never spent 12 hours straight at any computer portable or not. Not to say I am an "average user" either, but I'm not delusional enough to think everyone needs what I would like. And I don't derive feelings of self-worth from what my laptop looks like. Reply
B3an - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkWho the fuck takes there laptop to a coffee shop to pose? Oh yeah... mactards.
For the rest of us mature people with more than single digit braincell counts, we want laptops like this that are actually useful.
This isn't even meant to aimed at these kind of sheeple. Theres laptops made specificity to be very portable, thin, lightweight, with low power usage/long batter life, and this CLEARLY is not intended as one. Idiot. Reply
PlasmaBomb - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkAny chance of you asking for one and doing a review of it?
Thanks :) Reply
tipoo - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkWhy are Macbook Pro battery life results never put in with windows laptop reviews? I understand the differences in benchmarking performance between the two, but in terms of battery life it should be a straightforward comparison, no? Reply
kake - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkIf you look at the charts on the battery performance page, you'll find the Apple MBP 13 near the top of the heap in every scenario. Reply
tipoo - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkOh goodness, I must be blind. Nevermind me! Reply
ckryan - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkI'm more than a little disheartened at the state of Windows laptops. Especially Dell. Dell is in the best position to really make the defacto Win 7 standard, but can't seem to get it quite right. I'm going to stick with my Latitude D620 for a little while longer. It's really not that nice. Adding an SSD helped. But it's indestructible for a plastic laptop, has good battery life, and I can get anything I need on Ebay if I run into any issues. The screen is terrible, but having a docking bay makes up for it. Plus, I can get a new screen on ebay too. Newer dell laptops may have a lot going for them in some respects, but they can't eschew the commodity label. In most cases, a commodity with not so hot battery life. Reply
plewis00 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkThat Latitude D620 is a metal-encased computer, the lid is magnesium alloy and the base chassis and internal structure is cast-magnesium - that's why it has almost zero flex. The D-series of Latitude laptops (and the Inspiron series that was based on it) had a brilliantly well-built (mechanically at least) design. And I agree, this should be the standard for all laptops.
I like the hardware in the new XPS 15 but the first thing I thought when I saw it was I really didn't like the design - it's too thick and retro-looking. Not everyone wants Alienware/stealth designs that's a given but I don't know anyone who really liked the look of the new XPS series - despite the fact the M15x (R2) is 4kg+ it is still a lot better looking than the XPS 15. The Studio XPS 16 was and still is from a looks point of view a great design - shame they didn't consider getting heat out of it at all... This is all a shame because the hardware in the XPS 15 is amazing, and if it wasn't the fact I'd be paying the best part of £1000 for a machine I didn't really like the look of, I'd have put my money down and ordered one. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkOnce you get a good coating of dust and daily grime in there, you can kiss this sucker goodbye. Reply
ZENDUDE - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkIf I wanted a device dedicated to watching Blu-Ray movies, a 16:9 screen is great.
However, if I wanted a laptop for general use it is a negative.
Vertical space is very important as well to minimize the need to scroll up and down.
The 16:9 loses about 10% of the vertical space vs 16:10 wide screen laptops. Reply
beginner99 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkcorrect.
16:9 on laptops is just plain retarded. Doesn't make any sense for me. Laptops are used for web-browsing mainly and work. 16:9 only is useful for movies and gaming.
Actually for browsing 5:4 would be ideal but 16:10 is a fair compromise at least at somewhat higher resolutions.
The laptop I would want would need16:10, mate and reasonable resolution. That basically limits my choices to 2000$+ professional offerings... it's ridiculous. Reply
rscoot - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkI think MSI has a couple of laptops with 1650x1080 screens, but you aren't going to find 1900x1200 anymore unless you buy a 17" MBP. Reply
erple2 - Friday, November 12, 2010 - linkThat's not true. But you are limited to 17+" laptops (HP's EliteBook, Dell's Precision line, Lenovo's Thinkpad line) Reply
passive - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkMaybe I will be able to get a better deal!
I've been looking for a laptop to use when I'm working from home, that will also handle light multimedia duties and occasional gaming, without feeling like it's going to break in half whenever I pick it up. My wife has a MacBook Pro, so the Envy would just be a little too close, and it's more expensive.
I had also decided I wasn't upgrading my laptop again until I could get a decent screen, so I'm really glad the 1080p lives up to my hopes.
This is exactly the laptop I've been waiting for. Now I just need to decide whether to wait longer in the hopes that all your bitching about a laptop that's not targeted at what you want will bring the price down. Reply
cknobman - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkNo tech sites every did a formal review of the Sony CW series that was refreshed in January. That laptop was possibly one of the best buys of the year and makes like these Dell and Asus offerings look like poop.
Sony Vaio CW Series Model: VPCCW26FX
Color: Pearly White or Black
Intel Core i5-520M/2.4 GHz
Display 14" 1600x900
MSRP: $899 Reply
barnett25 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkAs always a great review. Just wanted to throw that out there because it amazes me how much people complain about the most ridiculous things in reviews on this site. Reply
Dug - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkPc laptop makers still don't get it. (Except HP with Envy line, which is just a knock off of Mac).
Just like monitor manufacturers. Just make a simple square black border. Don't add curves, or shiny black borders, or ugly angles.
This thing is horrible to look at.
Why can't manufacturers make a simple design? I don't care if its a little thicker than a mac, just don't add stupid crap that isn't necessary, put stickers all over it, etc. It's not that hard, and would actually be cheaper to manufacture.
For instance the thinkpad series, the border of the screen has engraved lines, hooks, odd spacing on one side, different depths. Why?
I think the timeline x series is close, but still not quite there. It is very close to specs on this except the screen. 3x battery life, better video card, 4.5lbs. Reply
Dug - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkI think this would be a much better alternative.
$803 with better specs, better looking, and more custum options. Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkWe'll have a look at that Clevo B5130M unit in the near future. I can tell you already that it's just as bulky and the speakers sound like crap, and the build quality doesn't look great either. It's got a good 1080p LCD though (very possibly the same one as the L501x).
As for the curves and other styling, that's ultimately a case of personal opinion. I happen to like the L501x; if I had any serious complaints with it I wouldn't have given it the Gold EC award. Some will like simple, some will like the curves; the angled edges also make it more comfortable to rest your hands on the laptop IMO. Some people think the Alienware M11x/M15x/M17x looks freaking awesome, I find it to be somewhat impractical and am perfectly happy with "average" laptops. I also like the way ThinkPads and Latitudes look and feel -- they're nothing like the L501x, but they're built more solidly.
I'm a little confused at some of your comments, though... I suppose you're referring to laptops in general, because the L501x is very clean with no stickers to speak of, and I'm not sure what would qualify as "stupid crap" on this laptop.
Anyway, Clevo's B5130M looks to be a fairly decent laptop and we'll have a full review from Dustin in the not-too-distant future. Stay tuned.... Reply
Dug - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkI was speaking of the sides. I don't mind curves around the screen or body as long as its a uniform look, but the sides just look terrible. At least keep the same color of the palm area.
The lines should just run even to the back, instead there's some curve and it makes it look like the back flares out.
I also don't need the dvd, multi reader, cdrw, blu-ray, etc junk on the drive. It just looks so bad.
Even the Inspiron has cleaner lines, except for some idiot marketing dept that decided glossy black is what people want where their palms rest. Sony has good lines too.
I also think 1.5" and 6.5 lbs is too much for what you are getting. I am assuming that the speakers are what is taking so much space. Or just bad design. Reply
barnett25 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link" I am assuming that the speakers are what is taking so much space. Or just bad design."
Or cooling?
I think Dell may be trying to avoid the overheating issues of XPSs past.
I like a good looking device as much as the next person but I personally feel Dell made a good call on this one. Half the good looking laptops out there overheat, I would rather have a reliable laptop than one that just looks good. Reply
Pylon757 - Sunday, November 14, 2010 - linkThe recent Thinkpad series fixed most of the problems you listed, and overall it's a more integrated look. They've got centered screens, no pesky grille things on the screen, etc. However, the hook on the top is still necessary for the Thinklight.
I think the Latitude E-series are pretty close too. My E6410 is a great looking laptop IMO. Brushed metal lid and all corners.
As for curves, my opinion is that doing them right is really hard. This laptop clearly doesn't do them well. I personally think that the unibody white Macbook is a really good example of using curves well. It fits really well into the design, and even adds a lot of functionality since the curved edges make a really nice grip. Reply
Aikouka - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkIt's nice to see a look similar to the older Dell XPS M1530 (which I own), but with more curves added. I am a bit bummed that they kind of tacked on the 1080p LCD without adding a graphics option that can truly handle it. When I looked at Dell's new line-up, I also noticed that the 17" laptop doesn't even have a 1080p option (unless it was recently added) but has the fastest GPU option available. Reply
notfeelingit - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link* The touchpad belongs in the center of the laptop. No one is using it with their thumbs while also using the keyboard. It should be as large as possible and directly proportional to the aspect ratio of the screen. Also, mouse buttons are dumb.
* Chiclet keys are the best.
* Batteries don't need to be super easy to change. If you design your laptop around this principle you will be able to make the laptop smaller while keeping excellent battery life. Maybe make an external battery option for business folks.
* Lose the optical drive.
* Only LED screens from now on, please.
Basically, just make a MBP, minus the optical drive, and knock the $800 apple tax off and everyone on planet earth will purchase your laptop. Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - link1 - Completely disagree on the touchpad buttons. I've used buttonless options and I hated it. Apple seems to have done it better, but I'll keep the buttons thank you.
2 - I don't think chiclet is best; it's a stylistic thing that looks okay, but if you want a good keyboard try a ThinkPad or a Dell Latitude.
3 - I agree they don't need to be removable at the flip of a switch for many users, but they also need to be user-replaceable.
4 - Disagree based on input from quite a few people. I've had more than my share of friends see one of my test laptops without an optical drive and they can't figure out what they're supposed to do. When I tell them to buy an external USB drive or just use the network, they look at me like I'm speaking another language. The masses disagree with you here, and even if Apple goes this route it doesn't make it the right choice.
5 - Name me one laptop out there that doesn't use LED backlighting... just one! What you need to say is "stop using crappy panels with tons of backlight bleed."
Pretty much every one of the items in your list is personal opinion, and your opinion is that everything should be a MacBook clone (more or less). I'd like to see a good Windows laptop that incorporates most of the above elements, but by no stretch of the imagination do I think that should be the only way to spec out and build a laptop. There's room for a lot of variety, and while some may not like the L501x styling I think it looks great. Reply
barnett25 - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkI HATE buttonless trackpads. I personally don't like to use chiclet keyboards. I need an optical drive.
I can appreciate your opinion, but I would not buy your laptop. Reply
Mayu - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkhow does Lenovo Y560 (i7 740QM, 8gb, 5730 1 gb graphics card etc) stand against this laptop ?
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/we... Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkCPU is faster (you can get 740QM with the L501x if you want, though), and the 5730 is definitely faster than 420M. However, the Y560 doesn't have any switchable graphics and that quad-core CPU will kill battery life. If you want to go that route, I imagine the L501x with the GT 435M and i7-740QM will be about the same performance. Then it comes down to the other stuff. The speakers are still way better on this laptop I'm sure, the LCD is definitely better as well (Lenovo only has a 768p panel), and Dell gives USB 3.0 ports. Aesthetically, that's your call. I think the IdeaPads generally look ugly, but reading the comments what I like isn't necessarily the same as what others like. Reply
ratlas - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkWhy does the CPUID Hardware Monitor screen cap show an 15 540 when this review machine is said to have an 15 460? Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkMaybe HWMonitor apparently doesn't know about the i5-460M. It's clocked at the same base clock as the 540M, but the 540M has higher Turbo modes. CPU-Z shows the correct CPU, as does Astra32, but I don't know how HWMonitor identifies CPUs. Reply
douglaswilliams - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkIt looks like a child's toy. Unlike the awesome sleek M1330 (and its big brothers). Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkProblem is M1330 had a pretty pathetic GPU in there, even back in the day. 420M isn't the be-all, end-all of mobile GPUs, but it's at least enough for medium 768p gaming. If you value thin, ultimately you're going to have to give up GPU power (and probably CPU as well). Not that everyone needs a fast GPU, and Sandy Bridge will make dGPUs even less of a need, but for gaming I still think the best IGP is inadequate. Reply
Dug - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkTo an extent. Even the Envy and Acer 4820tg is only 1.1" thick and has a better video card than the Dell which is .5" thicker. Even the Envy 17" is only 1.3" and has a 5850.
I hope Sandy Bridge and maybe a 6 series AMD will allow for easier cooling and hopefully thinner designs. Reply
Evil_Sheep - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkeh as a former M1330 owner i wouldn't describe it as either awesome or sleek, it's actually a bit chintzy but it gets the job done.
I don't think many will find the XPS 15 lust-worthy but it's hardly ugly: it seems conservatively tasteful and at least it avoids last year's horrid trend of shiny black plastic, the bland Inspiron grey/black plastic, and the latest fad which is light silver/black + island keyboard since seems everyone wants to be a Macbook these days. Reply
MacTheSpoon - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - linkAny chance you could run that volume test on some Macbook Pros, to compare them with the Dell XPS? The speakers on my MBP 2007 are a pet peeve; they're so quiet I have to use Audio Hijack to get the volume up sufficiently. I'm curious how the new unibodies sound. Reply
Evil_Sheep - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkGreat review. My first impression of the rebooted XPS series was "meh" but this review has helped change my mind. I can't remember the last time seeing such an enthusiastic review from Anandtech for a laptop PC (or a gold medal.) Dell IS doing a lot of things right here (for once) and they deserve to be recognized.
Still I think there is some real criticism that needs to be made of the XPS 15. The main one, and this may be perceived as being unfair, is there is no good reason for 15" notebooks to exist, aside from niche applications. The XPS 15 is a case in point: 6.1lbs (6.5 w/ the 9-cell), 1.5" thick, 3-odd hours on the standard battery is no longer mobile: the farthest I would want to transport this is from my bed to my couch. And if it's not going to leave my house, why not upgrade one step higher to the XPS 17 which for $100 more gets me valuable screen real estate, a faster video card standard, and more powerful options?
There is a user category that is going to be well-served by this overweight powerhouse, but their numbers are quite small. Most people looking for a mobile computer are much better served by sub-13" / 5lb laptops, where there is a lot of good choice in that category these days. Otherwise a home-based computer is better off as 17". The 15 is too big to be portable, too small to be useful. It's stuck between two product categories but serves neither adequately.
So personally this review leaves me very interested in the XPS 17. I'd love to see how the new Asus N73Jq matches up (also features brand-name audio, also runs the new GT400M parts) ....any chance of a forthcoming review? My guess is that it's completely inferior (unless the rumoured 1080p panel finally shows up) but it looks exquisite and I'd love to read Anandtech's always-thorough verdict. Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkWe're working to get the XPS L701x and L401x for review as well, but I don't know how soon that will happen. One thing that does concern me is that while the L501x has a standard 768p display, the thing that really makes this a winner is the 1080p B+GR (WLED) high gamut panel. There's no upgraded LCD on either the L401x or the L701x. Perhaps the stock panel is already good, but without testing I have no idea. I've seen far too many lousy LCDs to assume that just because the 1080p L501x panel is good, the other XPS panels will follow.
Perhaps the above explains the existence of the L501x. I actually don't mind the 15-16" form factor, but it does come very close to the 17" laptops. Keep in mind that we're really looking at 15.6" LCD vs. 17.3" LCD, though, so in terms of total size you're looking at 1.3" wider and .9" deeper on the L701x (or roughly 8.5% larger). It's also a substantial 23% heavier, but then it has the ability to use a much more powerful GT 445M GPU in the L701x and comes standard with the 435M... perhaps the cooling accounts for most of the difference?
Finally, while you consider 6.14 lbs too much to carry around, keep in mind that the oh-so-amazing MacBook Pro 15 checks in at 5.6 lbs. Perhaps being thinner makes it feel lighter, but really I have no issue carrying a 6 lbs. laptop around. It's the 9 lbs. with a 1.5 lbs brick and 2 hours of battery life that causes me grief. I'm still perplexed at the poor battery life of the L501x in the Internet test, so I'm going to run that same test with the LCD set to 768p to see what that does and test my theory of the resolution hurting it. With only the IGP active it should have done better, as the idle results indicate. We'll see.... Reply
Evil_Sheep - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkI just learned the 17 doesn't have the B+GR panel, and frankly I'm surprised as it seems a natural home for it. I thought I saw in some of the initial coverage that both the 15 and 17 would be offered it. Maybe it will be coming later. I hope so otherwise the 15 is a much better choice (for my needs anyway.)
My personal cutoff for weight is 5lbs. I spent years carrying around 6-10lb laptop bags (including AC) all day...it's something I can do but it's something I will no longer choose to do when 13-inchers are cheap, fast and give all-day battery life.
Once they get under 5lbs I often forget they're even there. It feels like going back to the dark ages with a +6lb 15-incher - I mean seriously I was using a similar form factor from Dell in 2000! That's history, or at least it needs to become history real soon.
So yes by that metric I would also eschew the Macbook 15 (Amazing? Maybe. Good value? Hell no.) There is a small subgroup of people who can't get enough specs in a 13" package but still want to attempt to be mobile, but those people are few and know who they are. Most are better off with 13's or 17's (go big or go home.)
Once the 400M parts start showing up in the Asus U30 refresh (and other 13-inchers), it's going to make relative heavyweights like the Envy 14 and XPS 14 look less interesting (you're gonna get the same power but twice the battery life, and of course the same crappy screen.) I'm surprised I haven't seen any announcements yet on the doorstep of the holiday season and considering how sku-happy Asus is. Reply
rorthron the wise - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkGood review with a lot of encouraging info. I'm awaiting delivery of an XPS L701X with Geforce 445m and Intel I7 740QM.
Jarred, are there any plans to review the L701X? Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkYes, we've asked Dell for the L701x. When/if that will come, who knows? Reply
warden00 - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkIt's too bad they don't offer more options with the video devices. If this had a mobile Radeon 5650 in it it would be -perfect- for me. Reply
KommisMar - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkThe specs seem reasonably good for the price, but why is Dell still advertising laptops that look like they belong in 1999? I know you make some nice looking laptops, Dell. Stop hiding them in the business section of your website! Reply
TEAMSWITCHER - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkSure you can save a lot of money, but if your gonna use the computer for many years do you really want to lug around something so fat, heavy, and ugly? Remember that something is a bargain only if you get what you wan't. Why can't this thing be 1" thick, 1 pound less, and bit easier on the eyes. Also, why can't they put in a big battery without having it bulge out the bottom of the laptop. WHY!!!!
If Apple can do it, why can't Dell? What the hell is going on here? Has Apple patented thin, lightweight good-looking laptops with non-protruding batteries? Dell - get a fu#&ing clue! Reply
JarredWalton - Thursday, November 11, 2010 - linkApple tends to run hot, they have a slower GPU, and OS X is far more optimized for power than Win7. Controlling software as well as hardware certainly gives you some advantages. And if they went with squared edges like the MacBook rather than rounded corners, a bunch of people would be saying it looks boxy. This weighs half a pound more than the MBP 15, and it's about .3" thicker. That .3" should help with cooling quite a bit. Could they improve the design? Sure, there's always stuff that could be better, but the old Studio XPS 16 was worse in many ways in my book -- all that glossy plastic was horrible! Reply
mrmbmh - Saturday, November 13, 2010 - linkDoes this high quality LCD exist only for 15" Models? How about new 14 Dell XPS? (I don't mean resolution.... ? I mean contrast &.... ) Reply
JarredWalton - Sunday, November 14, 2010 - linkRight now, the "B+GR" is only listed on the 15.6 as an upgrade, while the 14" and 17" list WLED. Obviously, all WLED are not created equal, so unfortunately without testing I can't say how the other displays compare. We're working to get the other two models in for review, but we'll have to wait and see what happens. Reply
Hrel - Monday, November 15, 2010 - linkIn order to get the GT435 GPU you HAVE to "upgrade" the CPU to a Core i7. I DO NOT WANT A Core i7, I want a Core i5. Yeah, let's reduce the clock speed by 1GHz then double the threads, yeah, that'll be great for gaming cause ALL games totally use 8 FUCKING THREADS!!!
Seriously, WTF!? In what world is pairing a Core i5 with a GT435M and "compatibility issue". I fucking hate you Dell. Even when you start to do something right, you FUCK IT UP!
I am angry out of my mind right now, I cannot believe they FORCE you to downgrade to a Core i7, fucking greedy bastards. That's NOT what I want. Cyberpowerpc.com FTW! Reply
plewis00 - Monday, November 15, 2010 - linkWhile that's true, your rant just made you come across as a complete retard...
I originally noticed the 420M vs. 435M issue but the 435M is virtually just a factory-overclocked 420M anyway. You also don't get Optimus but I'd find it less 'forcing' you as there is some other underlying reason neither you nor I know about. Reply
JarredWalton - Monday, November 15, 2010 - linkIncidentally, while the i7 quad-core is lower clocked for the base speed, it has MUCH higher Turbo modes. So an i7-740QM runs at a base 1.73GHz but can Turbo as high as 2.93GHz when only one or two threads are active. The i5-460M in this system as reviewed runs at 2.53GHz base but can only Turbo as high as 2.80GHz.
I'm betting you're thinking right now that the i7-740QM won't usually run anywhere near that 2.93GHz, but at least in my experience it does exactly that for many games. I'd go so far as to say that the only dual-core Arrandales that will clearly outperform a 740QM in games would be the i5-540M and i7-620M (and any higher clocked parts, obviously). But then, those cost just as much or more than the 740QM and in multithreaded loads they would still lose.
As far as I'm concerned, the only real drawback to the quad-core upgrade is that removal of Optimus. 435M can definitely do Optimus (i.e. look at the L701x: BOOM! An XPS laptop with 435M and Optmimus!), but Dell is choosing to artificially require the CPU upgrade along with the GPU. Sandy Bridge should take care of the problem in the near future with IGP + quad-core + ~25% faster than Clarksfield/Arrandale at the same clocks. How long before we get SB + 445M Optimus? That's what I really want for the base L501x. Reply
mopomoso - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkJarred, well you seemed to suggest there was no significant difference between the i5-460 and i7-740 in your review and then almost contradict this above.
"...The higher base clock speed also puts it (ie i5-460M) within striking distance of the i7-720QM in multi-threaded tasks, so unless you really need every last ounce of multi-core power the dual-core i5-460M is a compelling alternative—and don't forget the loss of Optimus (and the price increase) that comes with moving to Clarksfield processors" Reply
rorthron the wise - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkHave a look at your own post - the clue is in there!
Sod it i'll tell ya - the i7-740 is quicker than the i7-720!!! Reply
mopomoso - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkHaha! Teach me to post when I'm tired -:) Apologies to Jarred.
I'm currently debating whether to buy a L501 now or wait for SB. Doesn't look like SB will bring any benefit thermally and will, at least with the duals, only provide a small increase in processing power.
Plus it could easily take until February for SB XPS to ship. Reply
blackrook - Monday, November 15, 2010 - linkIsn't the 420m easily overclockable anyway? Reply
rorthron the wise - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI took delivery of an XPS 17 a couple of days ago; it kept crashing on me and now it won't start at all. When i try i get 6 beeps indicating a video card failure. It also came with a slight indentation on the right palm rest.
I've got a full refund though, and i'm not too put off - it's just a bit inconvenient that i've now had to re-order, which means waiting another couple of weeks for a new machine.
Hopefully this is not usual - doesn't Dell have a good reputation for reliability? Reply
dgs - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - linkI can find various versions of the XPS in terms of CPU and screen size, but I can't find the model XPS L501x. More pertinently, I can't find any customization that will give me the 1080p screen that the review recommends. And that's the screen I want!
I used to like Dell's website, long ago, but in recent years it's become so junked up that it's really hard to find what I want. Has anyone else been able to find it? Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - linkHilarious... search for L501x and all you get are support documents for the XPS L501x, including a BIOS update. Search for XPS 15 and you get a bit closer. Just go to the following link and select the model you want:
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/x... Reply
danielt - Monday, November 22, 2010 - linkNice screen at 1080p, but GPU is not up to the task. Even the cheaper Acer Timelinex 4820TG performs better than XPS15 (same core i5) in gaming and multiprocessing.
So for XPS15, GPU fail while A/V is good.
For 4820TG, GPU is good while A/V fails. Reply
danielt - Monday, November 22, 2010 - linkYou guys at anandtech should give 4820TG some tests, and see for yourself its benchmarks and gaming power.
BTW, judging from your tests on XPS15, even the cheaper Gateway ID49 performs better in many games.. Reply
CalvinW - Tuesday, November 23, 2010 - linkIs it out there the perfect PC or Mac?Will it come the day when we can go to the store and grab the perfect computer? NO, it won't . I hope not, otherwise the experience of shopping/ reviewing computers will be meaningless. If you want a quasi-perfect PC just build a desktop or if you want a portable one well, go with the market.
Moreover,I like this XPS15 because its features, but not because of its design. Dell could have gotten one of those guys that design for Apple and get something aesthetically beautiful to the eye. But what is beautiful for me, might be ugly for you though.
If you need a Mac to go out to a cafe and get looks of approval from people, or being accepted by a social group, well do it if you have the means to spend for a computer. I do love Macs but the MacPro are not professional at all.
As for PCs there is variety out there, there is more space to innovate, and there are many of us that want something more flexible in hardware, and perhaps OS system. Certainly, Windows 7 has its flaws, and it won't be perfect, but guys you have options... if you don't like this PC don't buy it, don't even read the reviews; also, and if you have problems with self-esteem, and therefore need a machine to show off buy one appealing to your friends and stop whining like a child. Reply
Tetranode - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - linkI'm about to buy one of these, but I want to know if it's at all possible to install XP on it. Yes, I'm a software luddite etc. who runs XP on a email@example.com and so forth, but I like the results.
Any info is appreciated. Reply
EnzoM3 - Monday, December 06, 2010 - linkHopefully it'll as good as the review says. Reply
Luke2.0 - Sunday, December 12, 2010 - linkOut of curiosity, I was just checking the site
That's the correct model, right?
As of this moment, the option to upgrade to full HD resolution is gone.
Just a few days ago, it was priced at $195 for the upgrade. (too high demand?)
For whatever reason causing the hike and the subsequent removal of that upgrade, the gold-medalist is not so golden now IMO. Hmmm... Reply
IanWorthington - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - linkLooking on dell's site for the 1080 screen today, can't find it. Is it still available? Reply
Taimfrey - Wednesday, December 15, 2010 - linkI've been looking at this laptop for a while and have customized it on their website a few times to figure out what I want and how much I want to spend. Tonight I got on and the option to add the 1080p screen was no longer available. I called Dell and apparently now only the alienware laptops have the 1080p screen as an option. I hope this is a temporary adjustment due to the holiday, or else I'm going to buy somewhere else. Seems like a rather poor move on their part, especially after a review like this. Reply
Photon0000 - Monday, December 20, 2010 - linkThe 1600 x 900 LCD display on the XPS 17 is for me not usable for image work and unpleasant to use period. It does not have any viewing angle you can tilt the lid to that will provide a consistent appearing image. Lift your chin and the image changes. If you tilt the lid so the webcam has you centered the image on the LCD is washed out like you are looking at it through mist. There is no sweet spot. As you tilt the screen its a continuous unbroken progression from washed out to loss of detail in dark areas. In any given position just lift your chin and the image changes. The only thing wrong with this laptop is the LCD but even the replacement they sent has the same unacceptable screen. I'm returning both. I'll just have to make do with my 5 year old 17" Inspiron 9300 which doesn't have any lid tilt viewing angle issues. Hopefully Dell will make a quality 17" screen option available at some point. Reply
Alex_kyri - Saturday, January 15, 2011 - linkI have bought one of these after being less than impressed with both the Acer and Sony i7s I already own. I must say that it's a beautifully manufactured and presented top-spec Laptop with outstanding performance. Best noteboiok in its class, hands down!!!! And phone Dell for a better deal - don't order online. Reply
lydiawang - Thursday, December 27, 2012 - linkLast month, I just bought a DELL XPS L501x, and also bought a DELL XPS L501x Battery on the site http://www.batterymag.co.uk/dell-xps-l501x.html , i like it. Reply
sufficient - Thursday, January 03, 2013 - linkhttp://www.ghdhairstraighteners-sale.org Reply
atppty - Saturday, April 20, 2013 - linkGreat Post. I have not been visiting the site recently. Took a visit again and there were some great comments on the site. Excellent post. Keep up the good work.
<a href="http://www.coralsatkeppelbaysg.com/">Coral... at Keppel Bay</a> Reply
Bob Carroll - Thursday, October 03, 2013 - linkmy Dell L501X shows an orange light above the mouse and function keys F7 through to F12 are also lighted up.
Plse can you tell me reason. Thanks Reply


text:
Welcome to Valhalla: Inside the New 250GB Xbox 360 Slimby Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/18/2010 1:59 AM EST
109 Comments
Back to Article
ajp_anton - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkAny reason not to use a slim DVD drive? Reply
jeremyshaw - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkFor your sound comparison, you listed crysis warhead!! Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkha! that's funny. That's what I get for not paying attention to what I was copying, the load tests were done with a spinning disc in the drive (Halo 3).
Take care,
Anand Reply
MonkeyPaw - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkHonestly, the drive noise on my Jasper isn't an issue for me, as I install my games to the HDD. It's a feature I love because it kills most of the noise, AND it boosts load times significantly. Really, putting the game data on the HDD is the only way I could fill up the drive--I don't use that space for anything else except a demo or two and the game saves.
I do wish the fans were better though. I don't mind the noise; it's the pitch that gets me. Reply
quiksilvr - Friday, July 02, 2010 - linkDoesn't that seem a bit sad, though? They couldn't even utilize a proper DVD drive so they just make users dump the game onto their HDDs?
This is why they should have gone with Blu rays.. The higher density of the discs would:
1) Decrease load times
2) Decrease the spin speed of the drive, which would in turn
3) Decrease noise
And thanks to the epic coating on Bu Rays, would make the games discs a hellova lot longer without having to resort to d skins. Reply
ck1984 - Monday, July 05, 2010 - linkDumb comment because you didn't check FACTS and you contradicted yourself for a start the facts are blu ray is SLOWER than dvd at load times because it spins the disk slower than dvd's e.g all blu rays spin at 2x speed dvd's go up to 24x i think. This is the reason PS3 has to install parts of all games to hard drive to decrease load times. You contradicted yourself when you said 1) decrease load times then said for your 2nd point decreased spin speed also, as mentioned before decreased spin speed means decreased load times as it doesn't read the data off the disk as fast. The only advantages it has is storage space (on that point hard drives are quickly becoming the future with online downloads as the the HDD is faster and holds enormous amounts of data way faster than blu ray and holds more data) and decreased noise thats it blu ray isnt the future for gaming its way too slow a very good example of how slow it is is to time how long it takes to put a small amount of game data to hard drive on the ps3, the load times you talk about are the ps3's hard drive running partially installed parts of the game compare the install time of the ps3 which only installs parts of a game, compare that to the 360 when you dump the ENTIRE dvd to the hard drive. Reply
Xentropy - Tuesday, July 06, 2010 - linkYou seem to be forgetting that increased density counters the slower spin speed in this regard. Just because a smaller arc of the disk is read in the same period of time doesn't mean more bits aren't in that smaller arc than in the larger arc of a DVD.
To answer in more detail, 1X on a DVD refers to 1.32MB/s. Equivalent to a 9X CD speed. 1X Blu-Ray refers to 36MB/s. So about the same as a 27x DVD drive. Yes, despite slower rotational speed, a 1x Blu-Ray drive (and most are 2x since at least 1.5x is required to play a movie at Blu-Ray quality) reads data at a far faster rate than even a 16x DVD drive.
The reason the entire Blu-Ray isn't installed to the hard drive in the PS3's case is the sheer amount of data involved. Two games would completely fill a drive. Reply
Xentropy - Tuesday, July 06, 2010 - linkMeh, to correct myself, my sources mixed up bytes and bits. A 2X Blu-Ray drive is about as fast as 7X DVD, at least at the outer edges of the DVD. DVD's read inside-out, though, and the Blu-Ray is actually faster than the first half or so of a 12X DVD drive's first layer of data, but slower than the last half. Functionally, the difference is small in the overall bits read per time between the two formats at 2X BR vs 12X DVD. Reply
CrimsonFury - Saturday, July 31, 2010 - linkThe speeds you quoted are not in the same format. The Blu Ray speed you quoted is in megabits while the DVD speed you quoted is in megabytes (also 1x DVD speed is 1.38MB not 1.32MB)
To convert from megabits to megabytes you divide by 8. So 1x BluRay = 4.5MB (Megabytes).
So a 2x BD drive like the one in the PS3 has a speed of 9MB.
A 12x DVD drive like the one in the Xbox 360 has a speed of 16.5MB, almost twice the speed of the PS3s drive. Reply
pieterjan - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkExcactly! Takes less space, makes less noise, leaves more space for a bigger heatsink and fan, which make even less noise. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI'm guessing cost more than anything else, this thing has to be as cheap as possible in order to turn a profit.
Take care,
Anand Reply
landerf - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkSlim DVD drive's cost more and are slower to read discs. Having engineered a HTPC that fits into a 360 case with a full size drive, psu, and real gfx card (90 degree pci-e riser) I can tell you it's all about engineering smartly. If there's plenty of room for something bigger but cheaper then that's just what makes sense to use. Reply
Guspaz - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkThe 360 uses a 12x DVD drive, so at least the rotational speed of the drive isn't hard to match (slim drives also go up to 12x). I'm not sure if the average seek time would be fast enough in a slim drive, though.
Another consideration is that a slim drive would have required Microsoft to switch to a slot loading system like Nintendo and Sony use; a slim tray would be too flimsy for a console, and requiring the user to snap the disk onto the central spindle might have been a bit awkward.
To be honest, though, I'd rather have had the new xbox use a slot-loading slim drive and an internal power supply. Reply
adam92682 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkThe Saturn, Playstation, and Gamecube required the user to snap the disc onto the central spindle. Reply
nubie - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkHa, you forgot the Dreamcast and Sega CD.
Seriously, that doesn't look like a full-size drive to me (I could be wrong). Not a slmiline drive, but doesn't seem full-size to me. Since they are using custom drives all they need be concerned with is the size of the actual electro-mechanical bits and circuit boards.
I like the HS design, looks like an OEM bundled PC HS/Fan, maybe we will see some heatpipe versions.
I like the HDD tray, looks like with a simple plastic carrier you can slot in any laptop style HDD. (Or just stuff newspapers around it if you don't care about fire.) Reply
sprockkets - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkLimited to 8x. Unless you can show me a 12x drive. They've been stuck on 8x for years. Reply
NaMcOJR - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkIt's the only thing that's missing there, yeah... Reply
rorrim180 - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - linkI would guess that they could not implement a mechanism to close the tray if they used a slim drive. Reply
arnavvdesai - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkWhile power has increased considerably for the PC counterparts, I still dont see any better cooling methods introduced. Even if were to assume that Microsoft would stick a 5870 into their box I dont see how they can cool such a beast in a small form factor. We would need to move to a lower die size in order to be able to adequately cool the device. Also, we need to remember that TVs have a hit the 1080p mark and will not move to a higher resolution anytime soon, so console makers will have to push technology in different area of improvements. Also, what about buffers for the GPU? While CPUs can make do with 12 MB of L3 cache what about GPUs. With higher textures we need the ability to feed the beast and consoles will need to somehow figure that out.
Also game developers have not really demanded higher capabilities from the consoles. I have a 5870 in my PC and having played the same games on PC and my 360 I dont see much difference in fidelity .
We must also remember that software for this generation cost a lot more to develop for. This means that if a new technology was introduced they would have to optimize for it at an even higher cost and most devs are not ready for it.
The only reason I see in the future which would demand more power from consoles is 3D. If significant market penetration is achieved (which is a long way IMHO) then and only then will we demand more from our consoles. Also, Microsoft will have a tough choice when it comes to the media they want their games to be on. Blu-Ray seems to be the only alternative at the moment and I am sure Microsoft would prefer something more( them getting that is a different thing altogether) Reply
Earthmonger - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI'll state here what I stated elsewhere: This thing looks like a fat woman sat on a DVD player. What were they thinking? I don't want it anywhere near my EC.
Hopefully someone will put out some decent-looking aftermarket cases. And at just $300, warranty isn't really a concern. Reply
bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkHugely disappointed you didnt tear the heatspreader off and measure the chips. That's my favorite part of these teardowns besides maybe the power draw numbers.
Also disagree we'll see X360 power in a phone in three years. Heck you dont even see PSP power in a phone now, which is way less than a PS2. And PSP is like 6 years old!
Also, the reason high end PC market isn't tapped anymore is piracy. That's obvious. The same piracy your affiliate over at Dailytech Jason Mick supports so strongly. Reply
bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkOh and forgot, the asthetics is a matter of opinion. I tend to think that while the lure of the shiny and new is overpowering here, objectively if I were honest the old X360 matte Elite looks better imo. The old X360 Elite is the best looking console ever imo.
Also, it's pretty funny how 360 and PS3 have switched positions in regard to capacitive buttons and glossy finishes.
Personally I dont like capacitive buttons, I have them on my samsung blu ray player and dont care for it. I prefer the tactile feedback of knowing yes, I pushed the button. I find myself wanting to jam on capacitive buttons all the time to make sure I pressed it, or maybe because I'm used to regular buttons.
It's good to see MS is thinking about end user experience in a bit of an Apple way here and including some rubber bits to dampen sound though.
Also, I disagree that MS is waiting on 40nm volumes to pick up to drop prices. As I posted in the other article, I think Kinect has totally screwed up their pricing. For now they are just in a pricing hold while they figure out what theyre going to do with kinect regarding bundling and the like, and Kinect may in fact be bundled with a price raise raise, or a steady price, thereby negating the cut that would have occurred had kinect not existed. Because I still think an argument can be made Kinect and Move will have to be bundled with every new SKU sold to avoid an uncertain fate that has befallen past optional add ons. Reply
tim851 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkThe high end PC market is still tapped sufficiently. The (in my view) most important titles are all released there, that is why I don't bother getting a console. And that is despite MS and Sony trying their a$$ off to convince developers to go system exclusive. Reply
bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkWhat important titles are released only on PC? Besides the upcoming Starcraft 2 maybe, one really major title in three years.
It's all just console ports now. Even Crytek (Id, Epic, Valve) has now gone that way. How is this even arguable? Reply
Guspaz - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI think the OP meant the opposite of what you understood. He's saying that he doesn't need a console because most games are *also* released on the PC, not *only* released. Reply
coburn_c - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link"Heck you dont even see PSP power in a phone now..."
I... don't think you know what you're talking about. Reply
bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkWhat phone games look better than top PSP games? I'll be waiting... Reply
Guspaz - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkThe PowerVR SGX535, as used in most current smartphones (with the snapdragon being an exception), is roughly equivalent to the graphical power of the PSP. Without knowing more about the architectures, the 535 has does 28MPolys/sec, while the PSP's does 33. The 545, which doesn't appear to be in any shipping devices yet, should be slightly faster than the PSP's.
Of more note is that the PSP has a very limited amount of VRAM available. In general, a smartphone can expect to have 16 to 32 times more usable RAM than the PSP, and likely at significantly faster speeds (the PSP's is DDR, while smartphones these days are using DDR2)
In terms of processing power, any modern smartphone should take the PSP to task, as the PSP's 333Mhz MIPS R400 is pretty dated. These days, smartphones are shipping with ARM Cortex A8 chips at up to 1GHz, usually on a much smaller manufacturing process (the PSP is still at 90nm). Dual-core Cortex A9 chips at 1GHz or higher should make it to market before the PSP's successor is released. It was rumoured that the Nintendo 3DS would use an nVidia Tegra 2 featuring an A9, but these rumours haven't been confirmed.
So, on a hardware level, the PSP is outclassed by modern smartphones in every category except the GPU (where it may have a small advantage). Ultimately, however, it has an enormous advantage in one specific place that makes everything else moot; OS overhead. While smartphones are much faster on paper, they're constrained by large amounts of OS overhead that bring down their real-world performance significantly. There's still going to be more RAM and CPU power available after overhead, but the demands of the underlying OS can introduce enough latency to cause issues.
Ultimately, we're seeing a lot of convergence. The hardware in smartphones and handheld consoles is pretty analogous, and in the case of Nintendo's products, probably the same. Even if the 3DS doesn't use the nVidia Tegra, we know it's still using some sort of ARM processor, and that's going to be either a Cortex A8 or A9, just like smartphones are using. From Sony's perspective, the PSP2 is rumoured to use some sort of multi-GPU PowerVR SGX product.
I should probably bring this back to the original topic and say, modern smartphones do have the power of a PSP (and then some), so you should really re-examine the hardware going into modern devices. Of course, as I said, OS overhead hurts, but even that won't matter much if the PSP doesn't get a successor soon.
At the risk of rambling on a bit, the iPod Touch 3rd gen was a pretty direct competitor to the PSP Go. They had similar size and resolution screens, similar capabilities in terms of graphical quality, they're both gaming handhelds (even Apple doesn't claim that the iTouch products are music devices anymore, they now consider them gaming devices), they both get their content via DLC, and they have similar costs (the iTouch 8G costing $199, the PSP Go costing $250). Reply
mczak - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linksmartphones today are actually still using lpddr (on a 32bit bus, I believe) at fairly low clocks, I don't think the typical Cortex A8 they use supports lpddr2 (maybe the A4 used in the iphone 4 being an exception?) but next gen should be lpddr2. I'm not sure at all about the memory interface of the psp, but in any case this also had (fairly small) embedded dram which likely offers more bandwidth than todays smartphones. That said, the tile based deferred renderer sgx family used on smartphones shouldn't really need that much bandwidth. Reply
Macha - Saturday, June 26, 2010 - linkActually, price wise, you need to compare the 32Gb model to the PSP. The 8GB model doesn't have the increased power of the other third generation models. Reply
Visual - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkdoes the wifi module work on a PC?
does another type of wifi module that was ment for PCs work with the xbox?
are you able to open the hdd case and replace the hdd inside? Reply
Ganesh_balan - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkAnand,
Could you please give us an insight into the fan details? Is that a Coolermaster make as it came out in the initial batch of leaked pics from the Chinese website? What size/rpm? Reply
jigglywiggly - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkUhm, I am going to be the first to say this...
It's hardly any smaller! (Not that the 360 is big)
Also it looks like a normal 360 and someone got a heatgun on the faceplate and it bent inwards. Reply
michal1980 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkYou need a special port for this add on? Reply
biohazard75 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkYes and no. The Kinect connects to the 360 via a USB port, however it also requires more power than can be supplied by the USB port.
So the 'new' Kinect port on the new 360 allows the Kinect to be connected via a single wire.
Connecting the Kinect to an old 360 requires an additional power lead (probably a power injected USB connector will be supplied).
(I never want to type Kinect/Connect again...) Reply
can - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkWith both chips being proprietary items (ATI and PowerPC) Who integrated them on one die? I guess I find it hard to believe that each company would give up it's design specs so that someone could engineer it for a single chip. Reply
piroroadkill - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkWe need that heatspread off. Reply
bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkFrom what I know it's unlikely the EDRAM was integrated. That's another reason it'd be nice to see the heatspreader off.
But as for who would do it, Microsoft?
The deal for X360 was such that MS owned the CPU and GPU IP, to a point anyway, so they can go fab it wherever. That was a big difference to the original Xbox, where Ms was forced to pay Intel and Nvidia whatever they wanted. Reply
can - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI wasn't aware of that, thank you. Makes me wonder how much info (specs, design) was given to whom and by whom? Still leaves me with questions, but it's a useful answer. Reply
xboxknow - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkIBM did the design and IBM and Chartered build the CGPU chips, mostly IBM at this point. It's indeed 45nm
There are 2 chips underneath, a large die containing the CPU /
GPU function and a smaller EDRAM, procured elsewhere Reply
xboxknow - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkAlso -- you can see Canada written on the lid -- the early parts are being assembled at IBM's Canadian assembly facility. Reply
teknomusik - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkDoes the slim still have an infrared signal receiver? I read somewhere that it doesn't, and I wasn't able to tell after looking at all of the pictures here. Reply
CityZ - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkIt does. You can see it on the motherboard next to the front USB ports. Reply
F3N1X85 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkThis is killing me because I cant find an answer to this ANYWHERE so since u looked at it's guts I assume you can answer it.
Did they remove the IR receiver?
I use my current xbox as a media device more than an game system. I use a logitech harmony one to turn on my xbox, tv and receiver with one button and control my xbox itself. Now if, god forbid, my 360 red rings I will probably want to get the newer one. But if this new one no longer has an IR sensor then it puts a slight kink in my normal operation methods. Reply
Drakino - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link"I own a total of five Xbox 360s. Four of them have died. Three because of the Red Ring of Death, all out of warranty. Many have had serial Xbox 360 failures, I had them in parallel."
Yep. I'm only on my second XBox, with the launch day unit replaced under their extended "oh crap, we built a turd" coverage. While the new system looks slick, I'm not interested in rewarding Microsoft with any more of my money. If my current system fails, I'm going to sell off the games I have. I'll never understand the attraction people have to the 360 with the repeated and widespread failures. I already made an effort to pick up any cross platform game on the PS3 a number of years ago, so the 360 has been seeing less and less use as time goes on. I don't have the time to play every game that comes out, so having just the selection available to the PS3 doesn't bother me.
Vote with your dollar, thats all companies really pay attention to. Stop rewarding Microsoft for failure. Reply
bill4 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkYup. It figures, any hate filled rant against the 360 is almost always accompanied by the other shoe dropping, "that's why I love my amazing Playstation 3 (tm)". I was literally just waiting for it as I read through your post.
Anyways, you can do what you want, RROD is a dead issue since Jasper what, 3 years ago? I've owned a X360 since launch for 4.5 years, 3 different ones, and had one failure in that time (around a year after launch I think) that was fixed totally free and took less than two weeks turnaround time. Honestly, not that big a deal. That replacement Xbox then worked flawlessly for two years, at which point I voluntarily upgraded to a Jasper elite which has worked flawlessly since then. It's just not even a concern.
Anyways I owned a PS3 (sold it) and that system is just terribly designed in so many ways (small example, I found it super annoying that my PS3 controllers were always out of charge for some reason. Worse, they only give you a exceedingly short recharge cable, another dumb decision, so I had to practically smash my face against the TV glass all the time while charging my PS3 controller. I later randomly read on a forum that the reason is, PS3 by default doesn't shut the controller down with the system, just terrible). I also hate the Ps3 last gen controller, especially for FPS, and PSN and XMB are both just low rent, and I read constant stories of never ending updates and installs and patches on PS3. And PSN download speeds are supposedly terrible, though I really didn't download that much in my time with it.
But in the end it's the games, and I'll take Gears and Halo over Indiana Tomb Raider, I mean Uncharted, etc. Reply
wicko - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkAnd it never fails that a 360 fanboy has to go into damage control mode and bash the PS3 for reasons that are entirely false. And FYI, I own both consoles currently and will not be selling either one.
The controller DOES shutdown when you turn the system off. USB cables are plenty long and it costs maybe a dollar to buy an extra long cable if you need one at monoprice or something. The charge lasts quite a long time even when its telling you the battery is low, it will still last 30 minutes or more. If your controllers were dying it is possible that you have defective controllers or you're doing it wrong.
Controller preference is a matter of opinion. Some people like the PS3 controller, some like the 360 controller. I'd prefer if sony had similar thumbsticks in that they have more resistance when you rotate them, and that the 360 controller didn't have a d-pad you'd expect to see on a 3rd party controller.
PSN and XMB are fine, in fact MS took a page from XMB when they made NXE except they bloated theirs with Ads and useless items/channels. XMB makes a hell of a lot more sense since it's much easier to find different settings and what not, as well as in-game XMB being identical to out of game XMB. Everything is in the same place no matter where you access XMB.
PSN being free also kills any real advantage XBL has, its just a much better deal altogether. And PSN+ makes XBL look ridiculous since you get more than just the ability to play online (which should be free) and early access to demos.
As for PSN downloads, well, they max out my 5mb connection so I can't complain, but I'm sure people with 10-20mb connections aren't getting speeds they're accustomed to. Valid complaint.
As for the games.. well again up to preference, but there is just so much more variety on PS3. Sadly, Halo has gone downhill in my opinion and I hope Reach is a throwback to the first game that I spent so many hours playing. But Uncharted 2 just takes the cake, there aren't many games that can match it. And I laugh at your Indiana Tomb Raider comment, considering Halo = Alients movies. Next time you're going to bash the PS3, at least get some facts behind you. Reply
wicko - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkSorry, *Aliens movies. Reply
chrnochime - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkAnd the MS fanboy rush out and claim that the PS3 just suck more than the 360. Please the 360 has been fundamentally flawed up to now, and all it took was 5 freakin years of actual production to make the system work as it should've always been.
Too short an USB charge cable? Get a freakin' longer USB cable. If you're so well versed in gaming and PC as most gamers are, you should know where to get (cheap) usb cable already. And that crap about FPS on 360 being better than PS3? Please both suck compare to KB + mouse, so don't pretend FPS on 360 is just so fun LOLOL(tm) (tm by the fanboys who else).
And those "constant stories" blah blah blah. If you actually owned one, and didn't experience any of the symptoms, what's your point in bringing them up?
Voluntarily upgrade to Jasper? Why bother when you were so happy with the pre Jasper anyway? Don't tell me you did it NOT because you weren't worried your system could go any time. Wow lots of confidence in your fav company there.
Just so you don't go thinking I'm a Sony fanboy(not that I give a crap what some anonymous poster online think), I own all three systems AND PCs for HTPC and gaming, so I got no bias whatsoever. I just HATE fanboys who keep saying HALO is so damn great when the freakin' controller is just a poor choice of input device for playing FPS.
And that thing about TV *glass*? You mean Plasma screen right? WTH still plays games on CRT anyway Ha Reply
cditty - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkThis was a great article as always. Why don't you get your ad department to find a sponsor to buy a box that you can destroy by taking the heatspreader off, so we can get some inside pics and measurement of the core(s).
Put their ad on that page of the article.... It will get some views. Reply
CityZ - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI see a potential problem with the power plug waiting to happen. It appears as if the prongs on the power plug are symmetric, though one delivers +12V and the other +5V. The plastic on the case and the plug makes a D-shape that only allows the plug to go in one way. However, someone who's taken their case apart won't have this protection. They might plug it in the wrong way and zap their MB/PS. Reply
adam92682 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkOne of the many reasons you aren't supposed to open the system. Reply
casteve - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkOnly 17.6W difference between idle and load power for Valhalla? While the idle power is better w/ ea generation, it seems they dropped the ball on this gen. An i5 661 + HD5870 based PC only draws 67-70W AC at idle. Reply
logikil1 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI haven't been able to locate what revision of HDMI the new 360 uses. I believe the original used 1.2 and was curious if MS went to 1.3 or 1.4 with this system. Reply
aforty - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI'd really loved to have seen some noise level comparisons between the new Slim and the first generation Xbox 360. I have a first-gen and the noise is pretty much why I now prefer my PS3. However I'm thinking about upgrading and would love to see how the new Slim stacks up against what I currently have in the noise department. The power consumption already looks really good compared to what this thing sucks down.
Thanks for the breakdown! Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkUnfortunately my first gen 360 is now dead otherwise I could've provided more data :-P
Take care,
Anand Reply
Pirks - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkAnand please tell us, I saw a youtube video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwINtoQpyNc ) where Xbox Slim does scratch DVD when you move it a little while PS3 doesn't. What's your personal take on that? Does Slim manual say something about danger of DVD scratching? Any warning labels on the Slim itself? Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkThere's a warning sticker on the DVD drive telling you not to move the console while a disc is in there. I meant to take a picture of it but forgot once I got into the teardown phase.
As long as you're mindful of it it's a non-issue, however I have come very close to accidentally ruining a game or two when I wasn't paying attention. It is silly and MS could easily fix it, but the 360 isn't about high quality hardware, it's about profitability.
Take care,
Anand Reply
Pirks - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkFuck Ballmer. Reply
Rob100 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkWhy oh why have they made it a nasty gloss black finish
If it was available in a matt "no scratch, no finger print, no dust" black finish I'd buy one, but from the pics I've seen it just looks cheap and nasty
I will be sticking with my Elite thanks which if you ask me looks 10 times better than this - what were they thinking...
If I wanted a quieter 360 then I would of bought an "arcade" and stuck it in a Lian Li XB-01B Reply
Huggy_Bear - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkI cannot believe nobody has talked about this yet!?
Blu-ray drive anyone?
Is the DVD drive plain old SATA/standard form factor? In which case one could theoretically replace it w/ an off-the-shelf SATA blu-ray drive?? Now, OS support and blu-ray playback might be the main issue here... Reply
tipoo - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - linkYou answered your own question there, even if it uses standard connecters the OS probably would not recognize the new drive. Reply
Gamerguy1020 - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkDoes anyone know if this new 360 has gigabit ethernet, as opposed to the 10/100 on older xboxes? Reply
Finally - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkIf Valhalla is the place where Vikings get to when they die,
does that mean that this new XBOX will die once it gets to you? Reply
Finally - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkOr does it mean that this new XBOX represents Valhalla and YOU have to die to get one? Reply
Finally - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkAs it seems, all of the above is inccorect as only certain body parts of yours have to die in order for Valhalla to enter your house:
Needless to say, I wasn't terribly happy about purchasing a sixth Xbox 360
If I had to imagine a picture that shows over-exaggerated self pity plus stupidity all at once I would make a video with some fat nerd uttering this statement. Seriously... Reply
Ninjahedge - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkIt is nice to have a smaller form factor, but being one of those people that actually has the money for a stereo w/surround and optical input attached to my HDTV, it would be nice if they considered ME in their form factor.
I HAVE an AV cabinet! I would LIKE a box to be a nicely sized component I can stack in there, complete with internal BR and PS. It could even be slightly LARGER than that original (the horizontal footprint would have to be) so long as I had something that would look like a wicked system component capable of/posessing:
Gaming (duh)
Internet Access (limited) and Video
Net/Internet Streaming and Custom Codec installation
Blue Ray/DVD playback
Unlimited USB connectivity
Limited video RECORDING (C'mahn! TiVo should not be the only one!)
Front LED display
I would like a combo Gamer/Vid/Media center. They could get away with charging slightly more for something that would only cost $400 but take the place of an UNLICENSED HTPC + Proprietary gaming system.
But no. We all know adults do not play games. Reply
jeremyshaw - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkJust a note, it's also likely MS used Global Foundries (since they bought off Chartered, the IBM Xenon CPU fab location MS chose), if the CPU and GPU have indeed been unified into a monolithic IC. Reply
ajlueke - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkWith what is shown here, I would consider getting one of these to replace the Xenon based 360 I purchased in December of '05. Yes, I purchased and original run 360 and it has not to this day RRoD on me.
However, it still has only the 20Gb HDD and a lack of HDMI, as well as the external 802.11g wireless adapter a purchased years ago. Not to mention over twice the power consumption of the new model. May be time to upgrade. Reply
Krakn3Dfx - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link"some exciting titles due out later this year and next"
Besides Halo Reach, Gears 3, and an unnamed Crytek exclusive, their E3 showing seemed to be a lot of Kinect casual stuff. If I didn't know better, I would say Microsoft is dialing down on hardcore exclusive titles in favor of multiplat titles and banking a lot of their money on Kinect's ability to take a significant portion of the Wii's marketshare. Reply
mczak - Friday, June 18, 2010 - linkis still disappointing imho, at idle. Sure standby power is much lower, but that's just because it is required by law, so if you're surprised by this, don't be, EU regulation requires standby power below 1W nowadays (and less than 0.5W standby power in 2 years). There's no law though requiring to implement reasonable power management when devices are running, and unfortunately it shows. Apparently none of the current consoles have any power management worth speaking of, it's not required by law, it's not a selling argument, so the companies just don't bother at all. Seeing how power management actually takes an effort to get to work (usually riddled with bugs ranging from hardware clock gating issues up to software timers) this isn't terribly surprising, but maybe one day it will be a selling argument, since apparently at least in the pc world all cpus and gpus finally implement it... Reply
jigglywiggly - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkNo you cannot connect any random dvd drive, they are tied to the motherboard.
You can spoof them though. Reply
IceCold12 - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link#1. Why did Anandtech deliberately hide the fact that they used a very old Power supply to exaggerate the size differences between the newer Vallhalla Slim Kinetic 360 power supply? Most likely embargo from Microsoft??
#2. Why no direct tests vs an newer Elite Jasper running a game from the HDD vs a new slim Kinetic running a game from the HDD. Why? because there is most likely no difference at all.
Way to ruin your rep AnAndtuch
So what embargos or restrictions did Microsoft put on you guys at Anantech?
Or are you guys now taking money in order to leave certain things out of your reviews??
We need to investigate Ananatechs behaviors, looks to me like they are no longer impartial or a credible source of reliable information.
This story goes deeper. Reply
bigben - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkyeah. and anand is illuminati.
watch out.
seriously, though, nice article. Reply
XboxMySocks - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkAre you fucking simple? What did you want anand to compare the new PSU to? A kitten? Comparing the new one to the old one is very comprehensive, shut your face. Reply
sdfdsfs - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkI'm guessing cost more than anything else, this thing has to be as cheap as possible in order to turn a profit. Reply
sdfdsfs - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linksing cost more than anything else, this thing has to be as cheap as possible in order to turn a profit. Reply
sdfdsfs - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkon not to use a slim DVD Reply
sdfdsfs - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkd tests were done with a spinning disc Reply
TEAMSWITCHER - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkHow can you keep a straight face talking about XBox 360 when 4 of 5 have died. I really can't understand why this isn't the biggest scandal in the tech world. This hardware has the worst track record in the history of electronics. I can see maybe buying a second one to replace the first, but a third, a fourth, a fifth! That's insanity! Reply
HellcatM - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - linkI guess MS is using different DVD drives because this article says its using a Lite-on, while the one from the link below says it uses a Panasonic. Both are good drives from good companies.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/06/17/someone-has-a... Reply
Ganesh_balan - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - linkSo I happened to read somewhere that although MS says the console cannot RROD it can RDOD and seems like a home user actually faced the wrath. His console was asked to shut down. :D
Take that MS! Reply
kratos4u - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - linkxbox 360s slim = "no RROD" its RDOD (red dot of death ) this time . 299$ worthless . xbox 360 sales high reason pirated games.
sorry xbox 360 fanboys
PS3 godz console Reply
bill4 - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - linki owned a PS3, it's remarkably poorly engineered. Terrible console, terrible controller, terrible games, terrible graphics. Even the much vaunted Uncharted actually looks pretty janky. Reply
TreDawg - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - linkDoes the new 360 still use a 100mbit ethernet port? I was really hoping for them to make the move to gigabit. Reply
TheLaw5 - Thursday, June 24, 2010 - linkThere's no real point to having Gig networking on a 360. It all reality, it would just be more expenditures and costs for them to put a Gigabit chip on board. That 2.5inch drive isn't going to be making any impressive read/writes. And 10/100mbps Ethernet does a fine job at HD streaming and for Xbox Live...so you know...
Yes, it would be nice, but no need.
But to answer your question, I don't know if it has 1000mbps Ethernet, but I highly doubt it. Reply
tipoo - Sunday, December 05, 2010 - linkWhy would you ever need gigabit ethernet in the 360? Streaming 1080p content is still far far away from saturating a 100Mbit connection, and even file transfers would get bottlenecked elsewhere. Reply
victor2585222 - Monday, June 28, 2010 - linkUmm I wanna buy this new 360 because my old one broke but if I buy the new 360 I would waste my hard drive 80$ Wifi 100$ and a second pair controllers 60$ and my harddrive has all my games in it losing all my achivamants so should I get this new 360 or buy a regular one? If you chose one plz tell me a reason why? Reply
Diddy Dave - Thursday, July 01, 2010 - linkGreat piece on taking the new XBox apart.
I see you show the wi-fi card being removed, which is great. Have you tried to play on it without the wi-fi card plugged in?
I ask because myself and a number of friends get ill from being near wi-fi, and my current 360 is starting to have problems. As such I'll need to get another 360 before my choices are taken away.
thanks. Reply
lazzydragon - Saturday, July 03, 2010 - linkI can't find anything about the scratching of the disks. Both of our xboxes, the original, and the 360 elite, have scratched up a few disks each. We do not turn it on it's side, and we don't move the xbox while it is being played. This usually happens within an hour of playing a new game. (HATE paying over 100$ for one game!!!) I was wondering if this was fixed in the new version. I saw that in the old version, a lot of people had to mod their' own. This is our deciding factor in whether we buy an xbox slim or not. All of our other concerns seem to have been addressed. Thankyou!!!
Monica Reply
kratos4u - Saturday, July 03, 2010 - linkxbox 360 console sells high = pirated copies
if MS take measures to stops piracy 100% = sales down
torrent = xbox 360 sales.
any 1 agree
sorry xbox 360 fanboys Reply
evilowner - Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - linkur logic is flawed big time any type of data is torrent..... before u target 1 thing plz do alittle research PS3 GAMEES ? also ? 0_o moives? music? programs etc do i need to keeping typing dump little kid.... torrents is to lower prices so ur not paying 150 for ur low quality data.... torrents keep prices in check... period. Reply
viocosi - Thursday, July 08, 2010 - linkIn the new xbox 360 slim is possible to use the iXtreme firmware? Reply
fiftey - Monday, July 12, 2010 - linkAs the article shows, there are minor improvements in power consumption and noise levels with the larger single fan, but I don't care about noise levels. The issue I have is does this fan provide sufficient cooling? With lots of people complaining on amazon.com that their brand new Xbox 360 S is already red-lighting and breaking down, I wonder whether microsoft have messed up again by focusing too hard on lowering noise levels by using a larger fan and lowering fan speeds and not providing sufficient cooling for the singular, larger heatsink.
I'd like to see some comparison data on the operating temperatures of the valhalla and jasper and if the new xbox is indeed still running hot, a step by step tutorial of how users can simply mod their new 360s so that the fan is always at max speed Reply
tipoo - Thursday, July 14, 2011 - linkAFAIK the failure rates of the new slims are below 1% (don't remember the source) vs above 30 for the original. All electronics have a certain failure rate, below 1% is good enough for me. Reply
draco2210 - Saturday, July 17, 2010 - linkanyone heard any news or updates about flashing the new DG-16D4S drives yet? Reply
pfeifer220 - Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - linkI lost the connector and power brick to my new 360 slim, does anybody know where or how I can purchase just these 2 items alone? Reply
butanebob - Thursday, July 29, 2010 - link"Needless to say, I wasn't terribly happy about purchasing a sixth Xbox 360, but here it is:"
People like you are the reason the RROD was even an issue. No wonder microsoft didn't bother sorting it out 5 years ago.... Reply
walkerfsu18 - Monday, August 02, 2010 - linki have the 360 slim but on it i hate how its the same as ps3,there are these white spots i just cant get off,i tried everything,any ideas? Reply
evilowner - Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - link1st off why argue over a shitie disk? dvd n blue-ray both fucking suck peroid. MY HARD DRIVE..... yea i said it..... the hard drive loads and stores way more than both of those n are both garbage. my hard drive loads a million times fast than both of them : P so any type of dvd isnt the future its ur hard drive......... 1 it loads a million times faster. 2 . it holds way more... uhhh terabyte hard drives.... come on.... why would i want a dvd or a blue ray disk?? yup i wouldnt..... they shouldnt even make disks anymore..... when u can dl the game to the hard drive n be done with it n never ever have to buy the game again..... or movie or even music..... enought is said, if u dont get it...sigh.... than u will never know how close to the future u truely are, n should go back into ur cave. ty. peace ! Reply
Rafterman - Saturday, September 25, 2010 - linkWas looking at the new X-Box S. The guy in the shop said it outputs 720p/1080p. Afterwards I'm thinking how does it do this if it does not have a blu-ray dvd drive and it got me thinking, are x-box games not HD(blu-ray) alla PS3 games. I understand you can run DLC at HD(1080p ect) but how does it work with games bought in the shop on DVD. Reply
xboxer - Monday, November 01, 2010 - linkDoes anyone know if there is any speed difference in the CPU in the new slim versus the original? Reply
tipoo - Thursday, June 30, 2011 - linkIts the same speed. Same architecture, same frequency, same buses. Just smaller. Reply
ordine - Tuesday, September 20, 2011 - linkBring back the old Cartridge was nice and fast,wonder if it would work these days . Reply
tipoo - Sunday, January 15, 2012 - linkIt would cost more per gigabyte. The PS Vita is sort of using them - if you count SD-like memory cards - but that can get away with less storage per game, most likely. Reply
jigglywiggly - Sunday, October 09, 2011 - linkIt's uglier, why does everyone think it's prettier?
Second, you could have done the x clamp fix to fix your old xboxes or just give them to me :P Reply
VenomousTBag - Thursday, September 19, 2013 - linkAbsolutely awesome. XBOX360 + Strawberry milkshake = f**ked? NO - thanks to this guide, I have just fixed the unfixable :) Thank you sooooo much :):):):) Reply
justammad - Monday, December 16, 2013 - linkSo the best xbox 360 console is jasper? To enjoy longtime gaming? Reply
justammad - Monday, December 16, 2013 - linkAnd whats about The gaming and problems experience of the 2013 xbox 360 e slim? Reply

subset: commoncrawl