PlayStation 3 Slim unboxing and hands-on!
By Ross Miller 
posted Aug 18th 2009 6:23PM
posted Aug 18th 2009 6:23PM
Update: Some details for clarification. The buttons in the front are now physical and actually "click" in to function. The PS logo above the disc drive does not rotate for vertical use, and yes, the hard drive is swappable -- as you can see from the pictures, there's a screw on the bottom, hidden by a panel, that lets you take off part of the front for access. We've also lined it up against our standard, fatty PS3, and we gotta say, it's noticeably lighter.
Update 2: Here's a more thorough comparison between the slim, the original, and the Xbox 360. Some people were asking about the texture of the matte finish, and compared to Microsoft's console, it's just a teensy bit rougher (and on that note, about the same weight, too). It's still just as glossy as the original on the sides, however. We still gotta compare the noise of the slim, stay tuned!
Update 3: While our tests were far from thorough, the initial results from our quick-and-dirty decibel ratings show some promise. With a baseline of 49 decibels, the Slim averaged 53 to 56 db when in use / playing a game / installing data (in this case, Metal Gear Solid 4), compared to the 55 to 58 db of the original. Blu-ray movie playback is where it becomes noticeable, as the slim peaked for us at 60 db when the original was doing 70 db running the same disc.
See more video at our hub!
Hmm looks quite nice. Lucky you guys.
Yeah it looks pretty decent. I might get one after all this time waiting and what not.
It's a fake! Way too little gloss!
looks good after this picture am sure ordering my tonight
299$ PS3 Slim/Blu ray player/free online/120GB/included wireless, last PS3 price drop was about 2 years ago, this is going to be as good as it gets for a looooooongtime people, I'll get one and it looks really good in real life unlike the official CG photos !
yeah it actually does look good in real life
No Spiderman font?!?!? This is madness!
I am glad to see the market agency at Sony has finally wised up about that aspect of their packaging.
Wonderful. It even has an internal PSU!
Personally I like the look of the PS3 fatty (is that what it's called now?) but of course I like the smaller size and the lower power usage of the PS3 Slim. If I didn't have a PS3 I'd be happy to get the slim for $299 and have a great Blu-Ray Player in a nice small box, but looking at it in my entertainment center just wouldn't have look as cool the originals, in my opinion anyway.
Hmm, why are pictures 1-23 in one slide show, and pictures 24-33 in another?
I started at picture 1, and wondered why I didn't see the picture that shows the hard drive door open.
STRIP HER DOWN!!!!!
I wanna see that mobo cuz she's me a nerd-on!!!
she's *giving me
Please, strip this baby! I am interested about her naked body. What makes it a lot cheaper and smaller.
NO LINUX SUPPORT?!
cool, now homebrewers have a reason to crack.
I give it a couple of months xD
Looks much nicer the v1, but is there any way to get these things to play PS2 discs? There aren't really enough PS3 games Id want to play to justify buying it for that purpose only.
I love my 60GB and would not trade it for a slim good looking super model. But I would like to know if the 60GB can stream codecs through HDMI, something the older PS3s could not do.
I know! That table is pure hotness.
Did it burst into flames when turned on?
i still feel the ps3 fat looks a lot nicer. the slim almost looks, cheap?
I'm really happy that people are excited about this because I love my ps3 and just want other people to join in that shit. I'm drunk and commenting on my iPhone how was the grammar???
Does anybody know if there's gonna be backward compatibility with PS2 / PS1 games?
I don't see why these changes are taking them so long. Ok Microsoft.. your turn. These companies acting like the boxes are future proof for a decade are just being stupid.. They need to continue making these minor changes to please the people. Work out the version control people..
Still ugly IMO (overall shape)
but it's a lot better than the original. The price tag is a bit nicer than that $700 initial price tag.
@tlarkin: where did you get your info that power consumption was lower in the slim model?
Looks great!
Also give PROPS to SONY!
When did your beloved APPLE ever come to your door with gifts of nerdyness delights!!!!
Looks good, but I prefer original hardware because cramming all that into a slim package means less room for air circulation.
I'm sorry, But I will have to get one of these machines.
@ adrian, it's ok. I FORGIVE U
@MJ
Apple brings them products all the time... Did you forget the mid-2009 MBP's?? They had one of each size.
Want! It's my birthday today, seriously!
my birthday is coming up in 2 days, yours has passed. i'm a better candidate, will make me MORE happier xD
pweej sony :}
Good, it looks like it has a proper internal power supply, not a POS wall-wort.
I was almost certain it would have had a power brick.
Yea, we have a winner this holiday. PS3 and PSP make a comeback?
I am baffled that it has an internal PSU. Anyone who has seen the 360's power cord knows why the original PS3 was massive. Amazing job on Sony's part.
Hey Engadget / Ross -
Can you please measure the power consumed by the new model (vs. the original) for a few different activities:
* playing PS3 game, * playing DVD, * playing bluray disc?
Thanks!
I totally thought it would have an external power supply too, like the gigantic one the 360 has. I'm glad to see they kept it internal - those things are super annoying! Props to Sony.
well thats what you get when you get a proper and well established HARDWARE company to make a proper console
Already? They're really not fuckin around this time.
wow you guys are fast... lucky!!!
You guys are popular , does it look better in person ?
matte = sexy time.
When did textured plastic become cool? It's always symbolized a cheap product to me...
It's a symbol of no fingerprints everywhere to me
glossy devices are beautiful as long as you never touch them. although it's not as big a deal with consoles.
They also show dust way easier. Who has the time to dust their electronics every week? errr...*takes the time
There is good matte, and bad ones. I can't tell from the pictures, but this looks like the cheap plastic sheets you used to get at your local auto parts store, that you cut out to fit around your stereo. Maybe it's just the sun, but I don't like how it looks here. if it's more sublte, like some rom drives, or some cases, then that's cool.
I like matte products, but not when it looks cheap like this.
The slim realy is unsexy as hell =/
Technically, it's not matte - the table has an interesting wave pattern that does distort light, true, but not to the point of a matte finish.
Either way, that table is pretty awesome. The metal circumference convey a great sense of peace.
You guys planning on staring at the PS3 or at the TV display?
I'm all for the price drop, but this matte finish looks like something some unknown third-party cobbled together with leftover plastic. Ugly as sin. The Sony design team should be ashamed.
Phew.. I thought I was the only one who thinks that the material looks cheap.
I'm trying my hardest to like it, but I just can't.. =(
I'm a bit partial, it's like an ode to the PS2 really.
It gives me the impression of a textured, curved Atari 5200... not a good sign.
If it looks so bad, you can buy the Apple's Gaming Console:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Pippinfront.jpg
i can haz?
no power brick?...sweet
The fat ps3 had it built in too, no powerbrick.
Wow!!! you guys are way to lucky.. So are you going to keep helping us through these hard times and send that pretty thing out to a lucky commenter?? ;)
I love the form factor...but that finish just looks like shit. They could have left it matte, that texture makes it look cheap
At least are the bottom, top and tray still glossy-rossy ;)
Actually a shame about Linux, even though I haven't used it more than a couple of times..
Amen to that. This "matte" (read: army-compliant) finish would never do it for me.
Yup, this is the cheap matte. It'll definitely look in place once the PS3 reaches $200.
Recession Antidote that right this minute. Now. Let's Go.
I second that!
How do you take the HDD out?
Look at picture 18, very carefully.
yea picture 18 vercarefully
Very Carefully.
Very Carefully, look at picture 18
Is it picture 18?
It might be picture 18. But be careful when you carefully look at it.
Look at the effing PICTURE 18, the one everyone fapped to.
The price cut/reduced footprint/higher efficiency sounds great. I just hate how the thing looks. Very mid-90's design with the cheap-looking plastic. Not trying to hate on the system but I really wish they could have made it look a little nicer.
360 has pebbled plastic too. No one seemed to give a rip there.
The crap? No it doesn't. It's smooth the whole way around. The original xbox may have(not sure, I never owned one), but then it did look like ass.
No it isn't smooth, it's pebbled.
Again, I fail to see how people can get excited about stuff that apparently they aren't even observant enough to notice in the past.
Again: no it isn't. I own one and you can look up pictures online, all of which clearly show that it's smooth everywhere on the system. Here's a link to a giant picture that clearly shows that: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/press/2005/05-13xbox_360.jpg
Think they just left too much area without anything on it, maybe the old huge PS3 logo would help, or maybe add a pattern, its cheap since its plastic and not metal.
And honestly it still needs to lose some of that "roundness" to look slimmer, otherwise we cant even place the PS2 on top of it since it still DOESN'T OFFER THE FULL BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY IN EUROPE! GRRRRR! (no seriously, there was no model with the PS2 engine in Europe and we pay a lot more for the PS3 here)
Yes. It is. Go home and look at yours tonight. You can't see the pebble in that pic, it's from too far away.
Back when painting 360 controllers was the rage, I painted two of mine. One I overpainted and the pebble was covered up. The one I painted black (before you could get a black one) I painted correctly and it still has the texture.
The picture Engadget has of the PS3 slim is even farther away(it looks like about 3-5 feet away) and yet clearly shows the pebbled texture. That's what makes it look cheap, thus what I'm complaining about.
I own 3 360s
2 are dead due to shit MS quality control.
The plastic is textured all the way around except for the power button
Yeah, I just rechecked upstairs, there is a 360 up there. You can tell at a glance or touch, it's pebbled. The Wii next to it is smooth.
You're right about the size of the pebble, this pebble on the slim is similar to the old Xbox pebble in size. Also, since it is black you notice it more.
But a big part is these pictures are taken close up under bright light, so the pebble shows more. It likely won't be nearly as apparent at your house unless you have a spotlight shining on your PS3.
Wait.
Painting controllers was the rage ever ?
Is that like people who airbrush fantasy art onto old cars ?
"Yeah, I just rechecked upstairs, there is a 360 up there. You can tell at a glance or touch, it's pebbled. The Wii next to it is smooth.
You're right about the size of the pebble, this pebble on the slim is similar to the old Xbox pebble in size. Also, since it is black you notice it more."
Alright, that I can agree to, and is my point. I don't know why they thought that would be appropriate for high-technology in 2009 since obviously it doesn't add anything and just makes it look cheaper. I know it doesn't matter that much, but I'd like a $300 gaming console to look solid, rather than having the same texture as flimsy cheapo-electronics.
@Mark
Dude, I rather have a cheap looking console than one that fails 54.2% of the time. This is normal operating procedure for you. Anything without the Microsoft logo is junk to you.
@Sy: First of all, if you'll notice, I started by complimenting the actual improved features of it. The only thing I said I didn't like was the way it looks. But, of course you didn't notice that, because you were just looking to flame me.
Second: That nice little figure of yours comes from a study that would have been more statistically valid if they used a random number generator to make the numbers. Of course, none of that matters since I have a 360 that's never RROD on me and has been working for me perfectly since I bought it. Even if I was in the market for a new one, the newer 360's have seen dramatically fewer incidents of failure. So that point of yours is invalid.
@Sy & Mark
MS didn't extend the warranties for nothing. I've had 2 fail on me in 2 years (both replaced free of charge luckily, along with free month of membership) and 3 of my friends have had at least 1 failure in the last year. 50+ percent sounds awfully high, but check out section 1.1 --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems
PS3's on the other hand apparently have very good records :) Just saying...
I like they way it looks with the matte finish, that's probably why its lighter.
*Matte is back.
*Unbleached cardboard internals.
*Curvier PS3 logo.
*Still more voluptuous than expected, but looking good.
spoke too soon.
The slot areas are gloss. Silly 'cause that's where fingers are, IMO. Sides of unit, too.
I seriously DO NOT CARE about packaging. Why are the internals of the bloody box always such a hot topic...
Am I the only one that thinks it looks like SHIT? I mean, come on...
I agree, the finish on the top looks cheap and tacky.
I own a 40 GB PS3 and I really don't like the new one. The old one looks so nice a well built but this one looks like Sony spent all of their time designing the internals to fit instead of making it look good. This is coming from someone who really likes Sony design but I guess companies make bad decisions sometimes.
I hate the design, too. I'd be slightly more convinced to buy one if it looked like an '80s hi-fi separate.
It's about time someone said it! I guess to cut cost they had to cut the bling!
man i agree i love my sexy ps3 (fat) the new ps3 looks like some old sh*t u would find from 2000 this is 2009 they could of atleast make it shiny like the old ps3.
SWEET! Its smaller, costs less, uses less energy and the hard drive is still user replaceable and the power supply is still internal! Sounds like a winner!
looks slick, but I still wouldn't swap it for my first gen PS3 with it's multimedia slots, more USB (even though I don't use them all) and backwards compatibility.