Xbox 360 Slim Review

The first thing to say about the Xbox 360 Slim is that the title is a bit of a misnomer. Really, it should be called the Xbox 360 Short, because the first thing anyone notices about it is that it isn’t actually much slimmer than any previous models – though it is shorter when stood on it’s end.

And if we're being really pedantic, given that the official designation for the machine we're calling Slim is ‘Xbox 360 S’, renaming is as the ‘Short’ makes just as much sense.

Even then, while the new Xbox 360 is noticeably shorter than the off-white original, there still isn’t all that much in it – not enough to indicate a dramatic redesign, anyway. Stood on its end, the Slim model measures 270 x 260 x 78mm (H x D x W) by our measurements. By comparison, ye olde Xbox 360 Premium measured 305 x 260 x 82mm.

Xbox 360 Slim Review Xbox 360 Slim Review
The Xbox 360 S or 'Slim'

So, it’s roughly half a centimetre slimmer and three and a half centimetres shorter, by our reckoning. That’s not a trimming to be sniffed at, but it does bear pointing out that the Slim isn’t to the Premium as the Macbook Air was to a G4.

Most of the space has been saved by a single design too, namely shifting the Xbox 360 hard drive so that it no longer sits bulkily on top of the console in that ludicrously over-sized grey enclosure. The new Xbox 360 Slim hard drives are much more modest in physical size, measuring just 105 x 20 x 75mm to the older model’s 195 x 24 x 79mm. The new drives also swap the old bespoke connection for a standard SATA port too, though we don’t imagine that’ll make it any more possible to use a standard laptop drive in an Xbox 360 Slim. Custom file formats and the like will still form a barrier.

The hard drive for the Xbox 360 Slim no longer slots on top of the console either, but slots inside the main body instead. A hidden button on the bottom end of the Xbox 360 Slim causes a section to drop away, revealing a space for the HDD to be slotted in. The new Xbox comes with a 250GB hard disk - the same capacity as the Xbox 360 Elite bundle had - as standard.