Xbox One S: The smaller, handsomer, 4K-ier system we’ve been looking for

What was going on in the Microsoft Devices Group during the Xbox One’s design phase? The 2013 console launched in a hideous state—and I mean that from a purely aesthetic angle. (We could go on about its other launch issues.) The system’s staggering size and VCR-like design left a lot to be desired, and the result was an entertainment-center eyesore that was somehow larger than 2005’s Xbox 360.

Microsoft had made handsome hardware before, particularly the XB1’s predecessor, the svelte and curvy Xbox 360 S. The company’s hardware side has since redeemed itself with the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book. Plus, the Xbox One is nearing its third birthday, which is the usual timeframe for a sales-boosting hardware redesign. Sure enough, the Xbox One S has arrived in time to redeem the Xbox division’s reputation.

Having seen the updated system design in person at this summer’s E3 conference, we at Ars already knew the Xbox One S would be an improvement by default. Now that I’ve tested the system for a few days ahead of its August 2 launch in the US, I can safely level-up that compliment and confirm that it’s Microsoft’s best-looking console yet. The One S is exactly the kind of sleek consumer box that gets second glances and compliments while tucked beneath your TV screen of choice (or placed alongside it after attaching an included vertical stand).

So let’s explore what has been improved and what benefits players can expect, should that TV screen of choice come equipped with either 4K resolution or HDR imaging.

Going to the matte

Ars goes hands-on and in-depth with the Xbox One S.

The Xbox One S wins out in many ways, and the most obvious one is its size reduction. You may recall that Microsoft announced a whopping 40-percent size reduction from the original Xbox One to the new Xbox One S. That figure is incorrect either way you look at it—which is ultimately good news.

If we limit ourselves to the system’s primary box, we only see a 37-percent reduction—which is still plenty. The Xbox One S has shed a few inches, down from 13×10.75×3 inches to 11.75x9x2.5 inches. The catch is that the Xbox One S has also shed the system’s famed “power brick,” which has been an Xbox staple since ~~Microsoft’s first console launched in 2001~~ the Xbox 360 debuted in 2005 (apologies for the error -Ed.). Instead, the system’s power adapter has been built into the hardware, which brings the Xbox One S’s total size reduction to 42 percent.

The other major difference is a mostly white exterior, which we haven’t seen since the first Xbox 360. That old system’s tone was a sort of gray-white, while the Xbox One S comes in more of a bone-white. You’ll notice how the system catches whatever light you have in your home. Warm, yellow light bulbs reflect easily on this shade of white plastic, which isn’t always flattering, but other light sources look fine on it. We hope this choice of plastic isn’t fated to turn a faint, sickly shade of green or yellow, like every other white and gray console launched in the past decades.

Perhaps the console’s full-matte finish will help in that regard. It’s certainly a welcome change from the first Xbox One’s mix of matte and glossy plastic, as the latter showed the slightest smudges and scratches. Instead of setting off differing types of plastic and jagged ventilation lines, the Xbox One S employs tasteful arrays of ventilation dots, with radii that grow and shrink gradually in a circular pattern. Those dots also differ in pattern and size on every side of the console, which makes a cool effect as you move around a room and see the dots from various angles.

On the very front of the One S is a USB slot that used to be on an awkward side panel. Now you can finally stick an Xbox One directly into your entertainment center, as opposed to leaving a wedge of space open in case you need to connect a USB stick or a cord. The front of the system has also been updated with clickable buttons for both ejecting discs and powering the system on; this change is particularly welcome when you need to long-press the power button for, say, fully shutting the system down. The controller-sync button has been moved from that weird spot on the original Xbox One’s left side to just below the power button.

Not much has changed in the back panel, meaning you can still use the system’s TV-out function to connect your Xbox to a cable or satellite box. The one major back-panel difference is that the dedicated Kinect port has been removed. If you own a Kinect sensor and still like using its voice commands and other features, worry not: Microsoft will ship you a USB-to-Kinect adapter, free of charge, if you ask for one on the official Xbox website.

The Xbox One S ships with a handsome vertical stand. Its solid black matte design matches the console’s full-black bottom, which is far more noticeable in a vertical configuration. For ventilation, there’s a sliver of space big enough for a pinky, which means the stand is not 100-percent stable. After tapping and pushing the system a few times, however, I’d say it’s about 95-percent stable. Basically, don’t put your console somewhere your pets might knock it down—which I’d suggest anyway.

Whichever way you orient the system, the One S’ design may lack the intentional, angular design of the PlayStation 4, but it’s still quite striking. The dot arrays, the bold, black contrast line carved around the Blu-ray slot, and the slight indentation for its black base make the system eye-catching without being showy. I imagine other future color variations taking a similar two-tone approach, and while I’d love to see a black-on-white theme (what can I say, I’m a dark-Ars fan), I like what Microsoft has done with a white-dominant design here.

Just be warned: without a power brick, the included cord to your power outlet is now much shorter. You may need to rearrange things to fit this console into your entertainment center. Thankfully, the Xbox One S uses a standard two-slot power cord, just like you’ll find in the PlayStation 4 and many other consumer electronics, so you can get a longer replacement cord for pretty cheap.

The Xbox One S comes with a new, default controller. Differences between the new and old controllers aren’t easy to see. First, the new gamepad has some welcome texturing on its backside—a sort of dimpling that makes the controller feel more rigid in your hands, which helps if your hands get sweaty while racking up high scores or pwning noobs. The new controller has also been updated with Bluetooth functionality, which makes connecting your gamepads to a computer easier, as long as you have a Windows 10 PC. Otherwise, to use the new controller with a computer, you’ll still need an official wireless adapter, an old-fashioned micro-USB cable, or third-party software that can manually assign the controller’s buttons to your favorite games or software.

(For more on the new controller, check out my hands-on look at the Xbox Design Lab custom-controller initiative, which shares the same hardware.)

Four times the pixels—but only in certain circumstances

Every Xbox One S buyer will benefit from the system’s aesthetic changes immediately. But they may need to make a pretty big investment to get anything out of the system’s other big upgrade: compatibility with 4K and HDR-10 screens.

What does that mean, exactly? As of right now, not much. Let’s start with 4K, also known as UHD. On the gaming front, the Xbox One S cannot magically upscale older games, or even future ones, from the current “HD” pixel count of 1920×1080 to 4K/UHD’s 3840×2160. That’d simply require a much beefier system, as the Xbox One already struggles to render its games in full 1080p.

We’ll have to wait for Sony’s “PlayStation Neo” (scheduled to launch this October) and Microsoft’s “Project Scorpio” (set for 2017) to see full 4K-resolution gaming on home consoles. For now, if you want to soak up full 4K visuals, you’re stuck with video services, and, in some ways, the Xbox One S is redundant on that front.

If you’ve taken the 4K TV dive, you probably already have at least one compatible streaming service pre-loaded on your screen of choice. “Smart TV” functions ship by default on most 4K sets from heavy hitters such as Samsung and Vizio. That means 4K-compatible devices such as the Xbox One S, the Nvidia Shield, and the second-gen Amazon Fire TV aren’t filling a huge gap in terms of content.

The only 4K-ready app in the Xbox One S’ launch is Netflix. Other Xbox One apps will receive 4K-compatibility updates “later,” according to Microsoft PR, but we didn’t get a list of any to expect, beyond Amazon Video, or an exact timeframe. Still, in terms of a future-proofed 4K content device, it’s probably safe to assume that Xbox One S will get more apps and app updates than your smart TV’s interface. That may give the One S a leg up over time.

For now, I went ahead and tested Netflix’s UHD selection, which requires a $12/month subscription plan in the US, on both a compatible Amazon Fire TV and on the Xbox One S. The latter device came out ahead, if barely. Microsoft’s hardware loaded programming at 4K resolution almost instantly, while Amazon’s small streaming box needed an average of six seconds to ramp up from a fuzzier signal to full 4K. While both devices saw their 4K feeds interrupted by the occasional stutter, Amazon’s box had more of them. In fact, Microsoft’s box managed to keep those stutters low and render full 4K resolution when connected via a wireless, 5 Ghz signal. This is good news if you don’t have an Ethernet cable nearby.

What the Xbox One S has that smart TVs and other streaming boxes don’t is a 4K Blu-ray disc drive. Standalone 4K Blu-ray players currently cost over $200 on average, which makes the Xbox One S a great value proposition for anybody eager to watch 4K films on discs. The only disc I had on hand—a copy of the 2009 Star Trek provided by Microsoft PR—worked fine, with a very brief loading screen before the film’s default menu and quick seeks between chapters.

However, Star Trek was an odd choice for Microsoft to send out, as its 4K visual upgrades are scant. Director JJ Abrams doesn’t shoot feature films digitally, so the only difference you’ll see from its 1080p version is slightly sharper details on the blurry edges of its film stock. Netflix’s filmed-in-4K selection offers a much more noticeable visual upgrade, though even that’s harder to discern without either jamming your face up to a normal-sized screen or upgrading to a giant, pricey screen measuring 60″ or more.

Wait, how many bits of color?

That being said, the Xbox One S does include a new graphics processing unit, and future games will be able to display colors using HDR technology—which may very well be a huge deal.

High Dynamic Range imaging, for the uninitiated, must be built into TV sets and monitors, because it enables the display of more colors—that’s 1.08 billion in the 10-bit color spectrum—along with brighter whites and darker darks. These can be smushed together with less color bleed as well.

At this year’s Game Developers Conference, Microsoft developers actively encouraged more game and app makers to embrace HDR technology, and for good reason. A hike to 4K resolution is often hard to discern with the naked eye, especially on a modestly sized screen. But HDR’s boost in color and luminosity has a much more noticeable pop, especially in high-speed, 3D-rendered scenes in video games. I caught a few HDR demos at GDC following Microsoft’s statements, and the games I saw, hosted by Amazon, showed off a high-speed sword-slashing scene in a lush forest draped in shadows. The effect made the realtime, 3D-rendered content look less fake and plasticky than it might have otherwise looked in a video game.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait to see whether HDR in games such as Gears of War 4 offers dramatic improvements or causes issues such as slowdown, as none of the Xbox One’s HDR-compatible games will be out for months.

In the meantime, the Xbox One S’ streaming apps and 4K Blu-ray player also work on screens with the “HDR-10” spec. That matters because set manufacturers haven’t decided on a single HDR standard at this point. Some sets only work with the competing Dolby Vision spec, and they can’t necessarily be upgraded to work with HDR-10.

According to Xbox One S, my 4K testing monitor—a 31.5″ Dell UP3216Q, rated as having 10-bit color depth—does not, in fact, support 10-bit color in any way, shape, or form. Hrm. Credit: Sam Machkovech

Ars doesn’t have any HDR-10 compatible screens on hand, so we reached out to Dell ahead of our review going live. The company was kind enough to loan Ars a 31.5″ UP3216Q workstation monitor, whose bonkers $1,400 MSRP can be blamed partially on its UHD resolution and partially on the screen’s full, 10-bit color depth rating. Yet even that screen didn’t meet the Xbox One S’ standards. Our console’s settings screens told us in no uncertain terms that our screen could render neither HDR content nor any 4K content with 10-bit color depth. Microsoft insisted that the screen doesn’t support 4K 10-bit content, in spite of Dell telling us otherwise, though Dell’s support team wasn’t able to answer our questions about the Xbox One S’ 10-bit color spec error messages in time for this article’s publication. (Update: Since some readers have asked, a little more info: We are using the Xbox One S’s included HDMI 2.0 cable, and the monitor we’re using supports the HDMI 2.0 spec; you’ll need an HDMI 2.0-compatible screen to display 4K content.)

The screen still displayed 4K content from Netflix and from 4K Blu-ray discs, just not with 10-bit color depth or HDR enhancements. Ultimately, if you’re not 100 percent sure that your screen of choice plays nicely with HDR-10, don’t just order the Xbox One S expecting to enjoy its every visual boost. I’d like to see Microsoft put together a database of compatible and incompatible TVs and computer monitors, especially since this is one of the earliest mass-market 4K and HDR devices. I certainly didn’t expect to run into trouble with 10-bit color depth support, and I’m sure my screen isn’t the only one that will throw up surprise issues.

Odds and ends

Before writing this review, I played a variety of Xbox One and backwards-compatible Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One S, just in case they caused any issues; after all, the Xbox One S appears to use a slightly different GPU than the original console, which could introduce glitches or other issues on older software. After a cursory test of about 15 games, I didn’t discover any problems.

(Update: Turns out Microsoft did include some updates for older games thanks to the system’s new GPU, which I initially believed was only meant to offer HDR boosts for newer games. Click here for more info.)

Since Xbox One uses cloud storage for game saves and other user data by default, I didn’t have any issue loading my original console’s data onto the new One S. After going through the normal console-configuration rigmarole (wireless router name and password, Xbox Live ID name and password), I was able to easily re-download old games I’d purchased digitally, along with their patch and save files. If I really wanted to, I could have grabbed files from my old system and copied them to the new one via a USB hard drive or memory stick.

In very good news, the noticeable, audible whine of the Xbox One’s fans has been substantially reduced in the new model. Even with the system’s Blu-ray drive running, which adds noticeable noise, the Xbox One S still runs quieter than the default Xbox One without a disc in its drive.

Speaking of sound: No, the Xbox One S does not support bitstream audio-out for newer 7.1 surround-sound formats such as Dolby Atmos. If that’s a dealbreaker for your home theater, you may very well prefer to pony up for a dedicated 4K Blu-ray player at this time, though Microsoft has hinted at these formats possibly being patched into the Xbox One S via a future update. (Remember, Dolby Digital support was patched into the original Xbox One in 2014.)

All Xbox One S owners will be prompted to update their system firmware to the “summer update,” which launches alongside Windows 10’s Anniversary Update on August 2. Xbox “preview dashboard” users have already seen its biggest changes, which include support for “universal” apps designed to run on both Windows 10 PCs and Xbox One consoles, as well as support for always-on Cortana voice searches (prompted by saying “Hey Cortana” aloud, either with a Kinect sensor attached or into a connected headset). These changes are not unique to Xbox One S, and they do not work any better or worse than on the normal Xbox One.

Bottom Line

As smitten as I am by the Xbox One S’ redesign, I’m ultimately a little cautious about recommending it. That’s Microsoft’s fault. In June, the company announced plans to release another console, the aforementioned Project Scorpio, by the end of 2017. The Scorpio will be designed to either run games in 4K resolution or to deliver smoother framerates on 1080p TVs. However, that could cost a ton of money, and the Xbox One S starts at $299 in a 500GB storage model, though that cheaper model doesn’t launch until August 27; for now, you can only buy the whopping 2TB storage model for $399. Beyond that, Microsoft is also releasing a heap of its remaining 2016 first-party games on both Xbox One and Windows 10, which might make a new console redundant for anybody with a beefy gaming PC.

Also preventing me from an unequivocal recommendation of the One S is the PlayStation 4. It’s already as small and svelte as the One S, and it packs slightly more processing power, all for a comparable MSRP. PlayStation 4 costs $349 for its 500GB model, with a pack-in game. (The 500GB Xbox One S will launch with two Halo games packed in, which will help its value proposition, at least.)