Early last year I made the biggest decision of my life; to marry my partner of 9 years. May last year Microsoft announced their biggest console of all time; The Xbox One. It looked like a very promising year!
When it comes to my relationship I’m rather lucky as the Mrs Loves gaming just as much as I do (her gamer score is high than mine!) so it didn’t take much to convince her to put down a deposit for the Xbox One. As the release date and the wedding got closer (1 week apart) my Xbox 360 died and the pending release of the Xbox One seemed like a God send. That was until we hit a snag with the wedding plans and had to use our Xbox One money. To say I was gutted was the understatement of the year but it did give me the chance to finally upgrade from my 5 year old ‘60Gb Premium Console’.
Not thinking I’d be buying a 360 again I didn’t bother researching the differences between the ‘Slim’ and ‘E’ models, after all the Mrs already had a ‘Slim’ so I didn’t think they’d be that much in it. Stupidly I went to my local Game and snapped up what seemed like the best offer at the time which happened to be an ‘E’ model. I checked with the sales guy that my current set up would be fine the way it was and handed over my money.
So I arrived home and unboxed my new toy. The packaging (outside box) seemed to be the same size as the Slim. Inside were a couple of different compartments filled with Xbox goodness;
- Xbox 360 ‘E’ Console with a 250Gb HDD (also comes in a 4Gb version)
- Power Brick and Cable
- Black Wireless Controller with Batteries (Standard Matte Controller)
- Composite AV Cable (with Scart Adapter Block)
- Black Xbox 360 Headset (Standard wired version)
- 1 Month Xbox Live Gold (Promo Card)
- Bundled Games (Physical copy of Halo 4 and Digital copy of Tomb Raider)
- Paperwork and Manuals
First thing to stand out was the design of the console. Made to look like a mini Xbox One, it actually looked real good from a distance but then on closer inspection the hype soon faded. The mix of Glossy and Matte in my opinion was a bad choice. The Matte half is nice and sturdy but the Glossy half seems real weak compared to the Glossy Slim which was sturdy all over. This presented me with my first problem. As my old ‘Premium’ casing could withstand a mini nuke going off, I’d been using its as a stand for my monitor due to limited desk space but there was no way the ‘E’ was going to support the weight and the Glossy section wouldn’t stay Glossy very long.
My second and biggest problem was found when inspecting the back.
- 2 x USB Ports; Check
- 1 x Kinect Port; Check
- HDMI Port; Check
- Power Port; Check (nice to see a small power brick and cable)
- Ethernet Port; Check
- A/V Port; Check
What the heck is an A/V Port? How am I meant to plug my big chunky Official Xbox 360 VGA HD AV Cable into this little tiny hole?! I soon realised the sales guy hadn’t understood what I was staying to him and I’d have to spend more money before I would get play again. After some research I soon learnt that Microsoft haven’t released any Official Cables for new A/V Port on the ‘E’ to allow it to be connected to a VGA or DVi Port (Very Poor Microsoft!!). Luckily eBay came to my rescue and I ended up purchasing a HDMI to DVI Cable along with a 3.5 Stereo Jack Lead for an additional £10. As Microsoft don’t offer a lot of information on the ‘E’ model, I just had to take a chance that the A/V Port would transmit sound alone and luckily it does. So 4 days later I finally got to boot up the console.
The physical buttons on the front of the console were a welcome return after the feather touch buttons on the ‘Slim’. Too many times my Mrs has been playing something online and our rabbit has brushed passed her ‘Slim’ and ejected the drive! I’m not too keen on location of the front USB Ports as I feel they’re too far back under the flap and can be a pain when trying to plug something in. I found the same problem with the ‘Slim’ though so think that’s just my personal gripe. The Sync button is easily pressed and responds as you’d expect it to. Not that I needed to remove the Hard Drive but I did check and I’ve got to say it’s extremely easy to access and compared to the old external Hard Drives, it’s what was needed to make the Xbox 360 a ‘Normal’ shape.
The console itself runs smoothly. The fan is really quiet and so is the disk drive. Towards the end my ‘Premium’ disk drive was louder than my monitor! Having run the ‘E’ in the same room as the ‘Slim’ for a couple of days both play GTAV I believe the ‘E’ is quieter than the ‘Slim’ but it’s newer so I’d expect it to be.
I did encounter a problem with the Wireless Adapter. A few times I found I was getting disconnected from Xbox Live and on returning to the dashboard and trying to re-connect I was getting an error message advising me there wasn’t a Wireless Adaptor installed. After speaking to Game and Microsoft Support, neither could offer a solution so I ended up doing a straight swap for another new one. Again a week later I had the same problem but after a bit investigating myself I noticed that it only happened when I was charging my iPhone through the console. Now I’ve done this with the ‘Premium’ and the ‘Slim’ and never had a problem but what’s annoying is that Microsoft won’t acknowledge the problem and look for a solution. I also found that the Help and Support that Microsoft offer for the ‘E’ is very limited.
So in conclusion if you’re looking to keep your Xbox 360 gaming catalogue alive and want a smooth piece of kit to play it on, this console has got to be considered! As long as if you’ve got access to a HDMI Port (unless you want to purchase 3rd party cables) and you don’t want to charge your iPhone, I don’t think you can go wrong with it. If on the other hand you’re looking for something that you might boot up once or twice a year for some ‘360 Reminiscing’ that I think you’d get better value for money purchasing a 2nd hand ‘Slim’.
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