The revision of the PlayStation 4 hasn’t even been officially announced, but that hasn’t stopped people from buying, unboxing, playing with, and reviewing the console already.
Let’s Play Video Games has already gotten their hands on a 500GB model of the console, noting that there is no advertising or packaging acknowledging that this is a “slim” or smaller version of the existing PS4.
As seen in the video below, the new revision doesn’t have an optical audio port (which most don’t use). There’s also nothing particularly special about the revision besides an overall shrink. There’s no added 4K functionality, although removing and installing a hard drive is a hell of a lot easier now.
I’d seen some scattered reports on social media that the PS4 Slim runs a lot cooler and quieter than its predecessor, which is more or less what you want to see from a hardware refresh.
In the longer written review, Let’s Play Video Games also talked a bit about the redesigned DualShock 4. Not much has changed, save for one thing that certain gamers might find very useful:
What is perhaps more interesting about the new controller model is that, when connected to a PS4 Slim or a regular model PS4, it transfers data entirely over wired connection rather than wireless. While this may seem minor, this allows a more frame-precise reaction time than wireless play, which will be incredibly useful for games like Street Fighter V. It’s a minor difference, but it’s a slightly tighter response which may make a difference to some players.
I’d still like to see Sony update the firmware so that it was smart enough to know when you’ve plugged in a LAN cable. But one step at a time.
Comments
51 responses to “People Have Already Reviewed The PS4 Slim”
I’d like wired controller capability on the existing Dualshock 4 model.
I wish Sony would fix the stupid thumb sticks. DS4 is the first controller where I had to buy endcaps so my thumbs wouldnt slip off them.
not to mention the general frailty of those thumbsticks. I’ve had to replace three controllers now
I’m a daily Ps4 gamer. My first two controllers are in a draw due to crumbling rubber on the thumbsticks. Everything else, like the buttons and triggers are in fine condition.
I bought two more controllers, but made sure to buy kontrolfreaks for both of them. A slightly longer one on the right stick, shorter on the left. Works a treat, but yeah, the original thumbsticks kinda suck.
I’m beginning to sour a little bit on Sony products. I feel like they aren’t making quality like they used to.
Shit… I sound old.
I can’t really comment as I never owned many Sony products. PS3, PS4, and even its controllers all feel really robust and tidily designed though, so I have some love for them still. I love my Muteki sound system too, which has lasted me for quite a while, though I understand it’s low end.
BTW you can buy packs of 5-10 of the replacement thumbsticks for DS4 on ebay for like $5 or less. Swapped mine out on both controllers, much harder compound of rubber/plastic.. worked a treat!
Also, they totally failed to mention the light bar now shows through on the touch pad on the new DS4 controller… I noticed anyway… Unless its just a fault?
Nah, that’s deliberate. It finally makes it useful.
It’s been mentioned in some news stories elsewhere. It’s there by design. I’ve never been one that’s bothered by the light-bar. Mine’s dimmed just to save battery, but I was always slightly curious about what it might be doing in games because I can never see it.
E.g, I wouldn’t know half the uses in this list, but I think it would be kinda cool to look down and see your controller blinking like your tracker in Alien Isolation:
https://www.engadget.com/2014/11/27/all-of-the-lights-many-curious-uses-for-the-ps4-light-bar/
The sole reason I bought Xbox over PS4 was the controller. Even as a kid, I hated the dualshock’s thumbstick layout.
Nah see, I’m super happy with the dualshock’s thumbsticks normally. I actually get annoyed sometimes with the offset thumbsticks of the XBox controller. The only problem I have with the DS4 is the quality of the thumbsticks, not the placement of them.
I grew up playing PlayStation well before Xbox and was convinced it was the pinnacle of console evolution (although the controller NEVER stick with me). Once I got my hands on the Duke, it was game over. MS continually improve their excellently designed controller while Dualshock is not much better than what it was 2 decades ago…Sony need to start talking some serious notes from MS.
But I actually use the optical out! I hope the more powerful version will still have it. It’ll be more marketed to enthusiasts so here’s hoping. My stereo only cost $150 but almost 10 years later it’s still humming along so it would suck to lose it. 5.1 is so much better than 2 channels.
Can’t you HDMI cable to the TV, then optical cable out from TV to surround system? I think this is how I have mine setup. It’s an older sony muteki.
Nope, the vast majority of TV’s only output stereo sound through the optical port.
I use a hdmi LPCM to analogue/optical converter to use my old system with the new hotness.
You know, a little while ago I played around with the plugs to accommodate a headset. Now you’ve just made me realise that for about a 6 months the headset optical cable I had plugged in was superfluous. And also I was maybe listening to stereo sound being output to 5 speakers and cursing poor surround mixes. Godnabit.
Thank you.
Hahaha. He beat me to it. My tv is prb the same. If I opt out from the tv, most likely it will be in stereo.
I don’t want to upgrade stereos. I’m happy with what I have while its working. I’m quite stoked it still works actually. Logitech z-5500 baby!
I think that TVs don’t translate a Surround Sound signal received from a HDMI port to the TV’s optical out port as a Surround Sound signal, as cubits says it just comes out as lame old stereo. I’ve never seen a TV that does this correctly.
Which sucks for me as I have an old receiver with only Optical Audio and and no HDMI ports. I bought a splitter to connect a few consoles at the same time.
Maybe it’s time for a new receiver?
There are converter boxes out there that can act as a pass through for an HDMI signal and output S/PDIF digital audio. That might be a cheaper alternative if it’s only one device that’s HDMI only, and your receiver does everything you want it to.
In the long run, you’re probably best off getting a TV and receiver that support HDMI Audio Return Channel. This basically gets the receiver out of the business of input switching for HDMI devices, and has the TV send the audio for the currently playing input backwards over the HDMI cable to the receiver.
One of the other benefits of this set-up is that you could potentially have a TV + device that support a newer faster version of HDMI (e.g. 8K TV) that the receiver can’t handle, but still have the audio work.
On my aging Sony TV, the optical jack gives surround sound output when watching broadcast TV, but if you’re using an HDMI input it only outputs stereo. What’s more, it just clips the centre, rear and LFE channels rather than down mixing, which is a bit of a problem if your game/film is piping all the dialogue over the centre channel …
My best guess as to why they did this is DRM. HDMI is an encrypted communication channel, and the entertainment industry mandated that protected signals be degraded when transferring to an unprotected channel (e.g. unencrypted S/PDIF). Simply throwing away all but the front left/right channels was probably the simplest way to degrade the signal.
Maybe newer sets aren’t quite so customer-unfriendly, but there are definitely TVs out there where you wouldn’t want to set things up like this.
It’s because S/PDIF Optical doesn’t support 6-channel LPCM – not enough bandwidth. The only option is compressed Dolby codecs, which the consoles (or even PC) don’t usually output in games, leaving you with standard stereo.
I’m pretty sure that’s not the reason. This happened even on my PS3 where I had specifically configured it not to output LPCM. The “intentional degradation of unecnrypted signals” seems a more plausible explanation for why the TV does it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF#Applications
I don’t have many PS4 games but all of mine support Dolby Digital. And they all give 5.1 sound through the optical port of my old Sony TV.
Why would you expect this? The slim revision is not the Neo which is where 4K support is being added. If they added 4K to the slim then it makes the Neo SKU irrelevant and the standard PS4 a whole lot more expensive.
Because the Xbone S adds HDR, 4K scaling/bluray and has a bumped up gpu which improves performance. People were hoping the Slim might follow in its footsteps.
And Xbone S costs as much as a launch Xbone, sans Kinect. For a 3yr old console.
4K bluray drives ain’t cheap. Once again, MS is being stupid. They will only cash in on the crowd wanting 4K players.
Supporting on-console 4k upscaling is relatively cheap to do (the new xbone s does it), but playing games at a native 4k will be even beyond the grasp of the neo without serious compromise.
I have a really tidy pc for editing and even it struggles mightily on 4k. You need a monster system to do it properly.
I agree that the Neo is highly unlikely to handle 4K native resolution. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if some games could run with frame buffers somewhere between the 1080p and 4K sizes (similar to how a number of current games have rendered to sub-1080p framebuffers on the current PS4 and Xbox One), which could give improved visuals over simply scaling up from 1080p.
It sucks a little bit. I was expecting H.265 and HDR support, which is planned infrastructure for Video streaming. Would have been nice to see everyone stepping aboard.
I noticed that there’s two types of reviews.
One that details specs listed on the box, then follow up by molesting the product and saying buzz words like lighter, sleeker, smoother, sturdier, revolutionary, clearer image, etc. Like an iPhone salesman would ramble.
Then there’s the other review, which benchmarks the product against the older version(s), then busts it open and looks at the layout of the board, the names of the chips, then looks up the specs of those chips, etc.
Guess which one is more helpful towards a customer wanting to buy the thing.
I feel like you’re leaning towards the latter which would appeal to gaming and tech enthusiasts, but the first “sales pitch” type would probably be far more accessible and interesting to a casual consumer.
No optical port – that’s a pretty massive fail. Headsets like the turtle beach use them for wireless 7.1 surround.
Understandable given how old optical is (developed in 1983) and given that many new devices are ditching it completely. It was bound to happen soon.
STOP BEING LOGICAL DAMMIT!!!!!!!!
Wow I never knew it was so old until I did a Wiki search. So what will replace TOSLINK/Optical Cable?
Is there actually a replacement for optical? Isn’t everything just going over HDMI now?
Optical surround is compressed, LPCM 7.1 can be fired down the hdmi cable without compression.
That’s how the wii u does surround without an optical port.
That’s probably how 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound will be delivered in the PS4 slim now that the optical port is gone.
HDMI has been used for that before, too.
Of course, with these headphones it’s going to go on to down-mix the signal to a 2 channel binaural mix. So if the problem is the bandwidth, the obvious solution is to perform the down-mix in the console itself, which I’ve seen a number of games offer in their options (e.g. Infamous: Second Son).
That also gets rid of the need for expensive converter boxes, and lets you spend the money saved on the actual headphones.
Probably USB Type-C.
I have a Turtle Beach wireless which I currently use on my PS3. The model I bought is also PS4 compatible so I guess I’m stuffed now 🙁
I LITERALLY GOT GREY HAIRS FROM TRYING TO FIGURE OUT MY PS4’S OPTICAL OUTPUT LAST WEEKEND.
THANK YOU SONY.
Not that I plan on upgrading from my Day 1 PS4 (maybe when Neo comes out), but no optical audio out?
The majority of decent quality PS4 headsets use optical (including the Astro A40s I have).
What will we use then? I’m not going back to wireless – got sick of replacing batteries or charging them.
I think I’ll hang onto my original PS4 and wait for the PS4K/Neo.
If I were just starting or moving from last gen to this gen, only then would I consider the PS4 slim.
I hope they made improvements to SATA interconnects, hoping for SATA3 for the NEO at least. Don’t care about HDD capacity.
The real question here is: Is that guy in the photo wearing pants?
It’s a she, I think…
Truth be told, I was surprised that the PS4 came with an optical port in the first place. It must have been there for sound bars, etc, because that ports is becoming scares on receivers now.
I have one on mine but I only use it for my PS2 so that if there are cut scenes Dolby Pro Logic II I can enjoy the sound track.
Why is that stupid? More people will own Xbones.