Xbox One S review

FORGET JUST GAMING — MICROSOFT’S UPGRADED XBOX ONE S MIGHT JUST BE THE BEST ALL-ROUND MEDIA DEVICE FOR THOSE WHO’VE PICKED UP A 4K TV.

MICROSOFT HAS A habit of being rst. It was the rst to produce a console with a built-in hard drive when it released the original Xbox. It was the rst to sell a console capable of highde nition graphics, the Xbox 360. And now, with the Xbox One S, it’s the rst on the market with a console that not only plays movies and games in 4K, it does it all with high dynamic range (HDR) colour support too. at’s quite the feat, albeit with a few caveats. Let’s cover the basics rst. e Xbox One S has shed 40% of its total volume compared to its immediate predecessor, and that’s even with a new built-in power supply. Instead of an enormous hulking box, you now have a far more svelte unit, one wrapped in matte plastic that won’t dominate your entertainment cabinet — it can even be placed vertically as well as horizontally. Both the Xbox One and the Xbox One S play Xbox One games — there won’t be any exclusive Xbox One S titles, so if you bought an original One between November 2013 and today, it will still serve you well for a good few years yet.

Still, there is better hardware inside the S. All S models come with a tweaked GPU clock that’s roughly 7% faster than the original One (914MHz in the S compared to the One’s 853MHz). As a side e ect, the increased clock speed bene ts some older games and backwards-compatible titles, too. Screen-tearing in Rise of the Tomb Raider is less severe, and Hitman also shows o better frame rates. Fallout 4, meanwhile, is still as clunky as it has always been. Alan Wake, an Xbox 360 game, doesn’t dip below 30fps as much as it used to — all of this is a tidy bonus.

KINECT IN THE BIN

A slightly redesigned controller with studded hand grips and Bluetooth functionality now comes as standard. (You can, if you wish, pair this controller to your PC, Mac or Android phone.) Our test console was the white launch model with a 2TB HDD, and retails for $549. Once they’re sold out, though, Microso isn’t making any more, and you’ll have to rely on the 1TB and 500GB versions, priced at $499 and $399, respectively. Both were o cially released in Australia on August 23rd.

On the rear of the S, you’ll nd all the same ports as the original One, minus the marred Kinect port. Microso has unequivocally taken the hint that the majority of people don’t want Kinect, and those that do can buy a separate $54.95 adaptor which plugs into one of the two high-speed USB ports on the rear. A USB port that once sat on the side has, logically, been moved to the front, just under the disc slot.

About those initial caveats. Firstly, games don’t run in ‘true’ 4K. Instead, your 4Kcompliant screen is showing o an upscaled version of games that are still technically running at 1080p (or, as in many cases with the Xbox One, 900p). We’re still a long way o consoles that can do native 4K at this price. Net ix and 4K UHD discs are another matter, which you can read about on page 16. In short, the results there are very encouraging.

But coming back to games, to get the very most out of the S, you’ll not only need a 4K screen, but one that’s also HDR compatible. We covered HDR in a bit more detail in our review of Samsung’s 4K Blu-ray player (see TechLife August, page 14), but the basics are that it can boost colours and contrast so you can see more detail in both dark and light imagery and can make the picture really ‘pop’. To that end, a few Microso -produced games will be available in the coming months that are HDR-compliant (notably Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4), which we’ve only seen in previews so far. Even at this stage, 4K HDR games look pretty amazing. Whilst not quite revolutionary, they do add a certain air that should please anyone with an appreciative eye. With a larger contrast range, games and movies have more depth to them, and we’re looking forward to how developers use this in dramatic scenarios.

THE ONLY WAY IS UP RES

For non-HDR games, the results are admittedly less impressive. While your eyes will de nitely notice the di erence between lowly SD and HD, the gulf isn’t quite as large between full HD on a beautiful screen and 4K on a merely good display. While games run with more verve (as we said above regarding Tomb Raider and Alan Wake), on a sheer graphical level, the di erence is barely perceptible. A er countless laps in Forza Motorsport 6, the best this writer’s eye could see was slightly better anti-aliasing.

You’ll also need a 4K TV that can handle that resolution at 24Hz, 50Hz and 60Hz, and have HDMI 2.0 cables that can handle the HDCP 2.2 standard (the S does include one such cable in the box). Check your hi- receiver, too — if it’s a few years old, it might be the weakest link and refuse to allow the higher-res signal through. Plus, we were a touch worried when the S spat back that one of our test screens, a 55-inch TCL C1 (one of the most a ordable 4K screens on the market, albeit without HDR capabilities) did not support 4K 10-bit, and would be “unable to play” 4K games. e 10-bit reference refers to HDR, but despite that warning, in the end, the console and TV did gladly play games at 4K in 60Hz.

is confusion around the nomenclature stems from an array of 4K standards, thanks to 10-bit HDR and Dolby Vision’s 12-bit. ese wrinkles will no doubt be smoothed out over the next year or so, but until then, TechLife will be here to keep you well informed.

STING IN THE TAIL

All that said, the Xbox One S is relatively good value for money if you want a gaming box that can play 4K movies. Like someone who’s gone on a lean diet and hit the gym, the Xbox One S has lost a lot of fat, is better looking, and can do more than ever before. Even at $549, this is the cheapest 4K Blu-ray player on the market, and with the updated Net ix app, it’ll also dazzle you with 4K shows and movies from the

ALL S MODELS COME WITH A TWEAKED GPU CLOCK THAT’S ROUGHLY 7% FASTER THAN THE ORIGINAL ONE (914MHZ IN THE S COMPARED TO THE ONE’S 853MHZ). AS A SIDE EFFECT, THE INCREASED CLOCK SPEED BENEFITS SOME OLDER GAMES AND BACKWARDS-COMPATIBLE TITLES, TOO.

world’s most recognisable streaming service. At $399 for the 500GB model, it’s a steal.

e potential spanner in the works is that there’s yet another Xbox looming on the horizon, ‘Project Scorpio’. Revealed in June this year — alarmingly, at the same press conference where the Xbox One S was announced — Scorpio will be released in late 2017, and looks to be a gargantuan bit of kit, with true 4K gaming, VR support, and a GPU capable of 6 tera ops of performance — the same as a decently-specced gaming PC. No other rm hardware specs have been released just yet, and Microso assures us that “Project Scorpio will join the Xbox One family and coexist alongside Xbox One and Xbox One S and all of your Xbox One games and accessories are compatible” and that it’s aimed at people who have a 4K TV and want the absolute best. While there won’t be any exclusive Project Scorpio games, developers will be free to utilise that extra power any way they see t. is could be to shore up a game’s framerate, add a VR viewpoint, or go all-out with uncompressed, high-res textures.

So does Project Scorpio make the Xbox One S a moot point? Not really. If you don’t own an Xbox One because you’ve been waiting for it to hit that sub-$400 price point, this is the time to get one. ere are also plenty of original Xbox One consoles available out there which are now even cheaper, so if you’re resolved to hold on to your full HD display for a while yet, you’ll likely be able to grab a bargain.