Xbox 360 Slim - Hands on! - Compared to the older modeled Xbox 360 Gaming Consoles by Microsoft

So today I bought Bungies new addition to the Halo Family, Halo: Reach. I hung up my contolers and gaming life a few months back due to my Xbox 360's disc drive failing. So when I bought Halo: Reach, I had to get a new console, so why not the Xbox 360 Slim? I had my doubts at first, considering how badly Microsoft failed at making the fist 360 console, but I'm about to go in depth in comparisons between the original 360 console, and the Xbox 360 Slim.

When I got my boxed Xbox 360 slim from Gamestop, I noticed that already, the box was much smaller. I got home and quickly opened it and set it up.. and now let the comparisons begin:

Yes, to state the obvious, the slim console is much smaller than the previous models. Height wise, when the console is in the upright position, it is much shorter, but width wise, it's only slightly skinnier. The power brick is noticeably smaller and lighter than the previous "bulky" power brick. I had to use my HDMI cable from my Blu Ray player because I got the cheapest slim package, which only came with the standard AV cables. The controller that came with the console is much sleeker. It features a chrome home button, and sleeker control buttons, joystick, and d-pad. I powered up the console, and it surprisingly seemed to load faster than my old system, and hardly noticed it was even on because of how quiet the fans run. If you have seen the Slim model, Microsoft has decided to do away with regular "push" buttons, and now all of the buttons on the hardware of the console are "touch" sensitive, meaning that you don't actually have to push the button, just tap it with your finger. For lazy gamers, time is everything, and touch buttons makes the process of powering up your device much faster.The console setup process was when I found the noticeable speed enhancement to the newly designed console. Everyone is probably familiar with the setup of the Xbox 360 console, and that signature chime you hear when you hit "next" throughout the process, as well as navigating throughout the multiple interfaces. Whenever i hit "next" in the setup, the next screen in the setup process was loaded before the short chime ended. With older models, you would notice the quick "loading" image appear before the next interface would load. Everything about the Slim console is noticeably enhanced, including the built in wifi router, which was super speedy to setup. Even when you power-down the Slim console, it shuts down almost instantly. With the older models, when you would hold down the menu button from the controller, the console would take a few seconds to shut off, and you could still hear the fans running for a short time after the console appeared to be off. The Slim console shuts off almost immediately. Originally, the Xbox 360 Elite was the only alternate 360 console, but elites are nothing compared to the Slim!

My only complaint was how long it still took to recover my Gamertag. I didn't get my hopes up when I started the Gamertag recovery process, because I knew that it streams from the Xbox Live servers via the internet, which has nothing to do with the console. I thought that there would still possibly be an enhancement in the recovery speed, but it still took around 10 minutes to fully recover my Gamertag on my usual fast connection to wifi.

In conclusion, I would highly recommend getting the Slim console. You will be more satisfied with its performance enhancements, and will be ready for the release of Kinect, since all Slim models come Kinect-Ready. If you're not familiar with Microsofts motion-controlled, contoller-free technology, take a peek at our Hub about Xbox 360 Kinect.