B2C Mother

I owned a launch 60gb system which I loved dearly – until it gave me the “Yellow Light Of Death” error, necessitating a costly repair through Sony’s customer service.  Sony’s service returned me a refurbished 60gb unit, which I have now sold in favor of a “Slim.” I simply don’t trust the launch units. I baby all of my electronics, in a kid-free, smoke-free household. I am frankly convinced that an unacceptable number of 60bg units will suffer overheating failures in an unacceptable time frame.

SO…

The PlayStation 3 120 GB system had an obvious appeal to me. It uses a 45nm microchip process (as opposed to the 90nm process of the original), which means smaller, cooler transistors, and lower power consumption. Accounts on the Internet point to a reduction of fully half of the power consumption between the 60 and 120gb units (check the internet for details).

Users like me will be giving up PS2 compatibility, memory card slots, and the ability to install Linux. Now, I think PS2 compatibility is great. I used it quite a bit early in my 60gb’s life. But frankly, it is simply less important now than it was then. PS3 has a huge variety of software, both on disc and via download. If I simply *have* to play a PS2 game, I can break out my PS2. I used the 60gb’s memory card reader twice, once to backup the hard drive (which can also be accomplished with an external USB HDD or thumb drive), and once to view HD camcorder movies (which can be accomplished by burning AVC files to DVD). Linux has no appeal for me, and was always a niche option.

The transfer process:

Sony does not make is easy to transfer your content from one system to another. First of all, swapping out the 120gb hard drive for a larger one is NOT the same procedure as it was for the previous systems:

1. Apparently, there is no internal flash memory for firmware. So if you put in a new hard drive, you will also need to have the latest system update on a flash drive to install onto it.

2. Switching the Blu-Ray remote from the old system to the new was not a painless process either, involving removing batteries, reformatting hard drives, and holding the remote close to the new system to “sync.” Twice.

3. Then, Sony does not allow the transfer of downloaded content from one machine to another via the backup/restore process. You can indeed put your PSN ID on a new system, but you are forced to re-download everything you got from the PSN Store. The only thing that transfers automatically are save games, photos, and other non-DRM content. So you may as well not even use the backup feature, since it will take an hour to copy all those games, and then not even transfer them. Instead, you’ll be better off just copying save games individually. This can be extremely tedious and time consuming, especially if you have many items, as I did.

4. Most irritating, Singstar music files, high scores and video saves cannot be transferred from one system to another by any means. They must all be deleted and reloaded from the internal Singstore, necessitating a call to Sony’s customer service department and a wait of up to a month. For music that you PAID MONEY FOR.

So let us say that the process of switching completely from one machine to another was not smooth.

The System itself:

I for one find the new aesthetics of the Slim’s exterior quite attractive. It looks more like a “real” A/V component than the “phat.” It doesn’t have all the chrome and shiny surfaces, which were just a magnet for fingerprints and dust. Also gone are the irritating touch sensitive buttons, in favor of clickable buttons that light up when the system is on.

Every aspect of software performance (besides those removed, mentioned above) is identical between the older and newer machines. All the same games (sans PS2 games) play in precisely the same way. DVD and Blu-Ray playback is the same (and those with newer audio receivers can bitstream DTS-HD audio, which the previous machine could not). Video playback still allows 1.5 speed viewing with stereo audio, a nice timesaver. The Slim is exactly the same capable DLNA streaming client, meaning you can stream Netflix and Hulu to the machine with 3rd party software such as PlayOn.

In terms of noise and heat, it is like night and day. As much quieter as the 60gb was over an Xbox360, the Slim is quieter still than the 60gb. After hours of gameplay, downloading, or Blu-Ray playback, the fan in my unit has not reached any higher levels. I would say it is at leas half as quiet as the previous units. I have much more faith in this unit’s ability to cool itself than I did with the 60gb.

In Summary:

The upgrade path is not the easiest or smoothest. But if you want to streamline your home theater experience with Blu-Ray, this machine is a significant improvement over the previous models. As a media streamer and as a game machine, performance is identical. So for me, who had a launch unit die, it was a no-brainer. If you have a later “phat” unit that has performed adequately, you probably don’t need to upgrade.

New users are in for a treat. They’re getting a slick, refined piece of hardware at a lower price than early adopters paid. Congratulations, your wait was worth it!