Gaming & Culture —

PS4 Slim review: A smaller, sexier console with few compromises

Aside from the lack of an optical out, you won't miss the original PS4.

(Re)Introducing the PS4 Slim.

The PS4 Slim was announced alongside the 4K-capable PlayStation Pro at the company's 2016 PlayStation Meeting event. For more on the PlayStation Pro, check out our coverage from the event.

Unlike Microsoft's compact console offering, the Xbox One S, the new smaller, slimmer, less glossy PlayStation 4 doesn't support 4K (UHD) resolution. It doesn't have a 4K Blu-ray player, nor does it feature slightly faster graphics processing than its bigger brother. Instead, the new PS4 (which replaces the old one) is much like the PS3 Slim: a leaner version of an existing console.

That's no bad thing. When it goes on sale on September 15 the 500GB version of the new PS4 Slim will retail for £259/$299. That price means the new PS4 costs largely the same as the old one, and some features have been cut despite the lack of price reduction. That said, they're not ones most players will miss. In fact, after a week playing around with the new PS4, I'd even say some of those cuts have made it more attractive.

Thin is in

Take the light bar that once split the glossy plastic on the left (or the top if you're one of those horizontal users) from the matte plastic below on the launch PS4, for instance. Sure, the visible glow was a nice bit of electronic bling—and arguably useful when it glowed orange to let you know the PS4 was in rest mode—but its removal has rid the new PS4 of the horrors of the fingerprint-friendly glossy plastic, as well as given it a lovely uniform look.

The overall split-parallelepiped aesthetic remains, but the sharp, angular corners that gave the PS4 a monolithic vibe have been rounded off for a softer look, while the matte black surface is much closer to the slightly rougher surface of the PS3 Slim than the original PS4, resisting fingerprints well. Aesthetics are always going to be divisive, but I'm a fan of the subtler PS4 Slim.

Up front are the new oblong power and circular eject buttons, which are thankfully actual physical buttons this time around, again mimicking the changes made in PS3 Slim and the Xbox One S. Why electronics companies feel overly sensitive, difficult-to-find capacitive buttons are worth the premium over far-more-practical physical buttons is puzzling, although I do wish the buttons on the new PS4 were a wee bit bigger.

Above the power and reset buttons is the slot-loading Blu-ray drive, as well as two USB ports. There's a wide gap between them, which may seem a little odd at first, but it makes getting a cable into the port that much easier. Plus, those using chunky USB cables or USB sticks will have no problem filling both ports at the same time. On the right of the new PS4, tucked into the gap between the two halves of the console, are teeny square, triangle, circle, and cross symbols, the circle doubling up as a hole to insert the optional vertical stand.

Unlike the original PS4, which did OK without a stand, the reduced thickness of the new PS4 does make it wobbly when stood vertically. If it's in an AV cabinet and unlikely to get knocked about, it might be fine, but for those with bustling households the stand is a wise investment.

Round the back of the new PS4 are more changes. The optical port has been removed, as has the extensive venting, leaving just the gaps around the edge of the console to pump out hot air. Interestingly, this hasn't made the console any louder. If anything, the new PS4 is actually slightly quieter than the older model, at least when playing downloaded games that don't use the Blu-ray drive. Unfortunately, if you do need to use the drive it's noticeably noisier than on the original PS4, emitting a rather irritating humming sound.

I/O on the new PS4 consists of gigabit Ethernet, HDMI 1.4, Aux for the PlayStation camera (which you'll need in order to use PlayStation VR), and a standard figure-eight lead for power. Those worried that the new PS4 wouldn't feature a replaceable hard drive can rest easy; there's a removable piece of plastic on the back that reveals a standard SATA hard drive. Removing the drive requires undoing a single screw, after which the drive caddy slides out.

That's about it for the console itself, other than to say that—like the original PS4—the new PS4 rocks a wee bit when laid down flat on a table. Only some of the square, triangle, circle, and cross symbols that adorn the bottom of the console are raised up and made of rubber. Why not just make them all the same height? Not that you'd go around gently prodding PS4s to test their balance—and if you do, I'd suggest trying another pastime, knitting perhaps?—but still, it's an odd design quirk.

You love the DualShock 4 light bar, right?

Bundled with the new PS4 are an HDMI cable, the same crappy, if functional, headphones and mic that came with the original PS4, a micro-USB cable, a power cable, and an updated DualShock 4 controller. Well, I say updated, but the changes are small. The D-pad and analogue sticks have been given a grey makeover along with a slightly more rubbery texture, which is easier to grip, while the light from light bar now shines through the top of the touchpad, which goes some way towards replacing the light ring on the old PS4. The overall weight and feel of the controller is much the same as the old DualShock 4. In other words, there's little reason to upgrade your controller.

Updated DualShock 4 on the left, OG DualShock 4 on the right.
Enlarge / Updated DualShock 4 on the left, OG DualShock 4 on the right.
OG PS4 on the left, new PS4 on the right.
Enlarge / OG PS4 on the left, new PS4 on the right.

Similarly, there's little reason to upgrade to the new PS4 console. Those hoping that it might run cooler than the old one are out of luck: the thermal camera shows an external case temperature of around 40 degrees after running Resogun for half an hour—nearly exactly the temperature as my launch PS4 (your console may vary, depending on ambient room temperature). While the AMD APU inside the new PS4 may have may have undergone a die shrink—indeed, the similar AMD APU inside the Xbox One S underwent a 16nm FinFET redesign—Sony appears to have used the improved efficiency to cram the chip into a smaller case, rather than opt for a cooler console.

Unlike Microsoft, which had a lot of work to do to fix the Xbox One—or indeed Sony, which had to fix the huge and costly original PS3—the original PS4 was already a desirable piece of hardware. The new PS4 isn't a big design change, nor is it a drastic costcutting measure like the cheapo PS3 Super Slim. It doesn't add new features, nor does it fix old problems (still no support for 5GHz WiFi, guys? 5Ghz WiFi is supported, although I had to reboot both console and router a few times to get it to work), and if you need an optical out, good luck hunting down an older PS4 before they disappear.

Plus, I doubt the new PS4 will convince Microsoft fans without a current-gen console to convert, especially since it lacks 4K Blu-ray support.

The new PS4 is simply a cheaper, better-looking PS4 that'll slide into sleeker slots in your AV cabinet with few compromises. If you're new to the system, this is the console to buy—at least until the PS4 Pro arrives.

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Channel Ars Technica