Xbox Series S review from Microsoft
The Xbox Series S is Microsoft's newest console, which is surprisingly small, both in terms of price ($299 at the time of writing) and dimensions.
Xbox Series S promises performance designed to play games with a resolution of 1440p at 120 frames per second. But is this claim from Microsoft valid? let's look at this article.
I've been playing around with the Xbox Series S for the past few weeks, and to be honest I'm really surprised Microsoft managed to fit a lot of the technologies from the Xbox Series X like ray tracing, quick resume, etc. into the console in such a tiny form factor.
Xbox Series S has most of the same internal components as its big brother Xbox Series X. This means you get the same or possibly better loading times improvements than Xbox Series X due to lighter textures. Games that run on the Xbox Series S are also supposed to run "smoother" than the previous generation of consoles.
The biggest difference from Xbox Series S and X is the different GPU power, 4 Teraflops on Series S and 12 Teraflops on Series X.
That means most people will need to pair this little Xbox with a TV or monitor that has a resolution of 1080p or 1440p. This is a cheap next gen console for those who don't care for native 4K games.
Does that mean this console doesn't support 4K? It's not entirely wrong, games that run on Series S will run on a 4K TV but not natively but instead run with Upscaled 4k. But digital media applications such as Netflix, YouTube, Apple TV and Disney Plus will still run natively at 4K with support for Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.
hardware
"Very Small", that was my impression when I first unboxing this console. Xbox Series S is the definition of tiny little chili peppers. How not, this small console contains serious horsepower.
- CPUs. 8X Cores @ 3.6 GHz (3.4 GHz w/SMT) Custom Zen 2 CPU
- GPUs. 4 TFLOPS, 20 CUs @1.565 GHz Custom RDNA 2 GPUs
- Memory. 10GB GDDR6 128 bit-wide bus
- InternalStorage. 512GB Custom NVME SSD
All of that was successfully packaged by Microsoft with a very small form factor. Oh, don't forget that now Microsoft has placed small rubber feet in the vertical and horizontal positions of this console. This allows you to place this console in a vertical or horizontal position.
Physically, the Xbox Series S is only 27.5 cm high, 15.1 cm deep and 6.35 cm wide in a vertical position. Unlike the larger Series X, I think the Xbox Series S looks great in both orientations. The Series S has been designed to fit into a normal person's living room, unlike the PS5 and Series X which I personally find too big.
On the back of the series s, there are two USB ports, one Gigabit Ethernet port, one storage expansion slot (Xbox storage expansion slot), and HDMI 2.1 out. Unlike Xbox One S, this console no longer features HDMI in for Cable TV passthrough and S/PDIF port for optical audio 😞.
On the front, there is only one USB port and no disc drive. That's the first big difference the Xbox Series S has with the Xbox One S: you won't be able to use any Xbox game discs you already own. To play games on the Series S you must own the digital version of the game and can only purchase games through Microsoft's digital store.
Xbox Series S also still uses Wifi 5 AC and doesn't have support for Wifi 6. This console is only equipped with one black cooling fan shaped like a speaker. In my usage, the Series S is a very quiet gaming console, unlike the PS4 or Xbox One S, which in my opinion are still noisier than the Series S.
New Controllers?
The controller on the Xbox Series X|S isn't that different from the Xbox One, in fact, you could say it's very similar to the sensational88 Xbox One version, the only differences are the updated D-pad, textured grip, the addition of a new share button and a USB-C port.
The share button allows you to quickly share clips or screenshots. And unlike the PS5 or PS4 the Xbox controller still runs on two AA batteries by default. So you'll have to buy the rechargeable play-and-charge kit separately ($24.99) if you want to take advantage of USB-C for charging.
In terms of feel, to be honest, I didn't feel a significant difference. It's just that the key travel for the trigger button on the Xbox Series X|S controller is now closer.
Games and Marketing Jargon 120 FPS.
Just like the Xbox Series X, Series S includes more powerful CPU and SSD storage than the previous generation but unfortunately Series S only gets a GPU with 4 teraflops of power. These factors allow for feature parity of the Xbox Series X and Series S. I'll talk more about this later.
Thanks to such hardware development games like Destiny 2, unoptimized for this console, loads in just 39 seconds on the Series S. And optimized games like Sea of Thieves load in just 20 seconds.
Unfortunately for last gen games that have not been optimized, the Xbox Series S will not run the game with the Xbox One X version but will run the Xbox One S version of the game. This is different from the Xbox Series X which will run the Xbox One X version of the game.
I've also tried various optimized Xbox Series S games. For example, Forza Horizon 4, which is a first-party title from Microsoft, can only run at 60fps at 1080p resolution on the S Series, and doesn't run at the 1440p target promised by Microsoft for this console.
Xbox Series S As Media Center
Xbox One S is one of the media centers that I personally use. The Xbox Series S has a lot in common with the Xbox One S in terms of media center. There is only one biggest difference between the two consoles, which is that there is no Bluray Player on the Xbox Series S. To be honest, personally I have never once bought a movie in Bluray format to play it on my Xbox One S. With services such as Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Youtube on Xbox, I have practically never bought a Bluray disc drive. Unlike the Xbox One S, now the YouTube application on the Xbox Series S can play 4K 60fps videos.
Conclusion
I think the Xbox Series S is perfect for gamers who don't care that games have to run with the "rightmost" settings. Microsoft's target this time, in my opinion, are gamers who just want to play games and don't bother thinking about these games having to be played in the highest specs, resolutions and fps.
The average Xbox Series S game runs at 1080p or 1440p resolution for certain games. I think this is very suitable for those of you who are still using a Full HD monitor. But the results of upscaling the Xbox Series S to 4K resolution are also not bad, but don't compare it to the native 4K rendering of the Xbox Series X. Gears 5, Watch Dog Legion and AC Valhalla looked very good in my testing at upscaled 4K resolution.
Xbox Series S has a lot of potential in the future. I hope to see more games offering 120fps on the Xbox Series S, and more games with ray tracing support.