Thursday, January 11, 2018

Xbox One X

In terms of pure dollars is it worth the extra $250 over the Xbox One S? No. 
You get the same performance for most games. As of this writing, there are only 3 games that can take full advantage of extra performance of the Xbox One X, plus, you'll need a 4K TV with HDMI 2.1 to notice any difference and you'll also need a surround system for the full experience. I don't have a 4K TV with HDMI 2.1 or a receiver with that same standard. It does perform really well and games really do pop. Is that enough to justify double the cost? I don't think so. 




I chose the Xbox long ago over the PS system due to the controller. The Xbox One X controller is impressive. It is a step up over the Xbox 360 controller. It feels much more substantial and I liked that they still kept it to requiring just two double A batteries. Rechargeable batteries work well and offer the best life over "kits" you can buy for the controller. Amazon offers AA batteries with 2400mAh each. Most rechargable kits offer 2400mAh for both batteries. 



I do like the extra ports that the Xbox One X does offer. You can connect an external USB 3.0 drive to play games which you will eventually need. The Xbox One X comes with a 1TB of space but that will only hold 15-20 games depending on the size of the game. Games will become larger and larger. Some games coming out in 2018 are over 100gigs!


I do not like the fact that you have to load the game onto the hard drive in order to play the game. The Xbox One X does let you start playing without loading the entire game which helps but it's still an annoyance. Microsoft should have sped up the read and processing speed of the drive so that you can play off the disc since they sped up everything else in the Xbox One X. I feel that Microsoft will not make improvements in this area due to the fact that they really want to phase out physical discs. It's coming. 


Is it worth it as a long term investment? Probably Not.
Microsoft will retire the Xbox One S and the X will be lowest version of the console(It'll be rebranded under another name). I'm sure they'll come up with another version prior to that happening and you'll have to sped even more money for the next version. It's their way of taking your money. I tend to hold onto the consoles for a long, long time. I still have my original Xbox but don't play it. I have two Xbox 360s which I do use. 

The best bet would be to wait until a year after it came out for the price to drop or have them include more games or an extra controller. It may be worth while if you plan on keeping the console for 10 years.

Technical Specifications:
  


  • CPU: x86-64 2.3GHz 8-core AMD custom CPU
  • GPU: 6 TFLOPS, AMD Radeon-based graphics clocked at 1172MHz with 40 compute units
  • Memory: 12GB GDDR5
  • Storage size: 1TB HDD
  • External dimensions: 30x24x6 cm/11.8x9.4x2.3 in
  • Weight: 8.4 lbs/3.8 kg
  • Optical drive: 4K UHD Blu-ray
  • Input/Output: Power, HDMI 2.0b out, HDMI 1.4b in, three USB 3.0 ports, IR out, S/PDIF, gigabit Ethernet
  • Networking: IEEE 802.11ac dual band (5GHz and 2.4Ghz), 2x2 wireless Wi-Fi with Wi-Fi Direct
  • Power consumption: 245W