Xbox 360 Elite Q&A
We've spent some quality time with the Xbox 360 Elite that arrived yesterday, and are ready to answer some of those pesky little questions that you may have lingering. Got any more? Post 'em in the comments and we'll do our best to get you an answer.
Q: What color is it?
A: It's black.
We kid, the rest of the questions are handily contained after the break. But seriously, it is black.
Q: Which DVD drive is in the Elite?
A: Neither our unit nor the model that Llamma cracked open sported the "super-quiet" DVD drives that have made their way onto regular Xbox units. Instead, they both sport the Hitachi GDR-3120L which, when that disc gets going, is impressively loud.
Q: Is the unit less loud / as loud / louder than the current Xbox 360?
A: We'll look at this as idle system noise, beyond the not super-quiet Hitachi drive. Since the Elite sports the same 90nm processors, therefore requiring similar cooling measures, the fans in the two units produce a nearly equal amount of noise, though there is a difference in tone (which may be related to the fans in the Elite being different, or just newer).
Q: What's the manufacturing date of the Elite?
A: Ours has a born-on stamp of 03/04/2007, while our Xbox 360 premium is 11/5/2005. It's just a wittle baby!
Q: How does the Elite's HDMI output compare to the composite cables?
A: Since both connections look great on our 3" black & white Watchman, we'll defer to our friends at Engadget who hooked both up to a 46" 1080p display. Not surprisingly, they weren't able to discern a notable difference between the two either. That's why we're content with our Watchman.
Q: What is that strange audio-only cable for?
A: While HDMI supports audio, you may want to run a dedicated optical or stereo audio line to a receiver. Since both of those outputs are contained inside the Xbox 360's proprietary AV port, they've included this handy little device.
Q: How does the data migration tool work?
A: Well, how to put this? It's ... cumbersome. Check out our hands-on for our thoughts on the process, some pics of the device, and scans of the manual. If you purchase an Elite, you'll be able to get the Transfer Kit for free through Xbox.com.
Q: Is the Elite region-free?
A: We don't have any foreign Xbox 360 games to test this one with, but we have no reason to believe that the Elite marks a region-encoding strategy shift for Microsoft.
If you're considering upgrading and want to know how the Elite stacks up to your current Xbox 360, for the most part, you can consider the Elite identical, save for the larger 120GB hard drive, HDMI output, and (of course) the 1337 new color scheme.
