My delightful cherub of a son was watching TV rather closely without a nappy on.

On came the sprinkler systems and my 4 year old first gen. Xbox was met with a piss-stained death. How undignified!

As mentioned in a previous blog I decided to buy myself a new one (the old unit was v. noisy, the 20Gb hard disk was absolutely rammed full and I like new toys), it was about that time that Microsoft announced the new Xbox 360 (or Xbox 360 Slim or Xbox 360 S.. whatever it’s called) so I decided that I could wait until it was UK bound and pre-ordered on Amazon.

It’s turned up and woo! Xbox is still all good.

It’s smaller, quieter, black gloss and with less buttons!

The buttons have been replaced by touch/light sensitive pads so there’s no audible or physical click, you just place your finger on the buttons. Those buttons are the eject and the power buttons and they both make a reassuring ‘beep’ when pressed.

When there’s no disc spinning the unit is no noisier than the Sky HD box (both sit about 3m away) so that’s my major gripe with the old one gone. When there’s a disc spinning it is still pretty noisy but not once you get into the game you barely notice.

With the 250gb hard disk you can just install the games to disc and be done with the disc spinning noise… The hard disc is now inside the device ( you can still access it to replace / remove) adding to the overall shrink in dimensions.

They’ve also seen fit to throw a N capable wireless device in the box so no more USB thing hanging off the back. Perfect.

Overall, it’s definitely a step up from the old Xbox but I wouldn’t really call it an upgrade. No extra horses or features, just a shrunken, quiter, cooler gloss black version of the original 4 1/2 year old unit I originally had.

Achievement Unlocked (100G) : Blog post written