I thought I would share my experience of upgrading my Xbox360 yesterday, should anyone find it useful. My reasons for upgrading were because Microsoft’s extended guarantee againstthe “red rings of death” problem was soon to run out on my 120GB Elite console,and the new slim console reportedly does not suffer from this issue. Also, I had read that the new 250GB (colloquially known as “Slim”) runs silent, and I found the high noise level of my Elite console annoying.
I decided to trade in the old console as I didn’t want the hassle of going through eBay. HMV offered me £30 cash or £40 trade in, GAME £60 trade-in and I went with Gamestation, who offered £60 and plus extra £1 when Imentioned GAME’s offer, with £10 for my old wireless dongle as the Slim comes with built in wireless. The transaction was kept waffle free, thus I spent about 20 minutes in the shop.
At home and unboxing the console I would describe it as “slightly” smaller and better looking than the old one, although wireless controllers make it is possible to hide away all modern consoles, as I choose to. Turning it on reveals a noise level on a par with a plasma TV fan, PVR or idling Nintendo Wii,so a marked improvement which anyone would very happy with, were they not to take the “silent” claims literally. My partner and I both noticed an improvement in video qualityin terms of definition and colour separation particularly in darks, however this may well be the result of collective over-excitement as there does not appear to be any technical reason for the perceived change – a shame we do not have the old console for direct comparison. Game save transfer was easy via a USB stick but some patience is required for the licence migration, and it would avoid some frustration to register the new console on Microsoft’s website before following the migration instructions, which do not direct one to do so.
Overall I’m very pleased with the £130 spend, and would heartily recommend the upgrade to anyone in a similar situation to myself.
I decided to trade in the old console as I didn’t want the hassle of going through eBay. HMV offered me £30 cash or £40 trade in, GAME £60 trade-in and I went with Gamestation, who offered £60 and plus extra £1 when Imentioned GAME’s offer, with £10 for my old wireless dongle as the Slim comes with built in wireless. The transaction was kept waffle free, thus I spent about 20 minutes in the shop.
At home and unboxing the console I would describe it as “slightly” smaller and better looking than the old one, although wireless controllers make it is possible to hide away all modern consoles, as I choose to. Turning it on reveals a noise level on a par with a plasma TV fan, PVR or idling Nintendo Wii,so a marked improvement which anyone would very happy with, were they not to take the “silent” claims literally. My partner and I both noticed an improvement in video qualityin terms of definition and colour separation particularly in darks, however this may well be the result of collective over-excitement as there does not appear to be any technical reason for the perceived change – a shame we do not have the old console for direct comparison. Game save transfer was easy via a USB stick but some patience is required for the licence migration, and it would avoid some frustration to register the new console on Microsoft’s website before following the migration instructions, which do not direct one to do so.
Overall I’m very pleased with the £130 spend, and would heartily recommend the upgrade to anyone in a similar situation to myself.
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