Announced last October, the PS5 Slim is now available across the Atlantic. Engadget indicated on Friday November 10 that the first bundles including the new PS5 Slim and a game like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Or Call of Duty Modern Warfare III were now on sale for $500 and $609 respectively in the United States.
The Verge, who managed to recover one, published his first impressions on Friday November 10. And it is clear that the reception is rather cold, the tech site evoking “strange half measures” about this new console.
The first thing to remember is that the PS5 Slim is smaller than the previous one. Sony said its volume had been reduced by more than 30%. In our test, published in 2020, we highlighted its disproportionate size as a weak point of the Japanese group’s new home console. We then wrote:Yes, the PlayStation 5 is a huge machine. Really huge. Whatever psychological preparation we undertake before unpacking it, we cannot contain a little amazement when seeing with our own eyes this monumental totem with such a singular design. Already impressive when positioned vertically, the machine strangely appears even more massive horizontally, with its 11 cm thickness and 40 cm width“. The new dimensions of the Slim version are as follows: 358 × 96 × 216 mm (LxHxD). And it weighs 3.2 kg (2.6 kg for the Digital Edition) on the scale, compared to 4.5 and 3 .9 kg previously.
The journalist of The Verge Antonio G. Di Benedetto nevertheless seems surprised by the size of the beast. “Okay, it’s smaller… but he’s still a big boy!“, he writes. As for its complex, busy and “downright ugly“, according to him it modifies the perception that we can have of the machine depending on its angle of approach. Same story for the YouTuber Dave Lee (via Kotaku), who considers that it is not much smaller. For the Kotaku site, this is perhaps the reason why Sony chose not to market this new version under the name “PS5 Slim”…
The technique is attractive, the design much less
Although it may seem more refined, this console is nevertheless disruptive due to a rather surprising bias in terms of design, continues The Verge. The record player is reminiscent of a “strange growth“, and the console is confusing by its lack of ventilation fins on the top, writes the journalist, who is also not convinced by the support. You will have to buy the vertical support at $29.99 to make it stand standing.
However, not all the echoes are negative. Although the design does not seem to be unanimously unanimous, the technical part nevertheless wins the votes. The console now has 1 TB of storage compared to 825 GB for the previous version, and two USB-C ports on the front instead of one USB-C and one USB-A. As for the removable disk drive of the digital version, it seems easy to attach or remove, without tools. But be careful, an internet connection is required to pair the disc player and the PS5 during installation.
The Verge warns that factory resetting the console requires an internet connection to properly disassemble the disc drive, “which raises the question of what happens if you sell or buy a used drive that hasn’t been disassembled“.
The Tech site is formal. If you own a first generation PS5, keep it!
Sources: The Verge, Kotaku