- I've had some time now to mess around with both the Xbox Series S and Series X. And in the time that I've been able to play with both these systems, I actually have found myself
slightly changing my opinion on whether or not you
should buy which version of the system. When the Series S was first revealed, they very much had this reaction of, Oh, this is the obvious choice
for a lot of people out there. It's so much cheaper, It's still offering
very similar performance for a lot of games outside of resolution. This is really the way a
lot of people should go. But now that I've had more
time with both of them, I'm kind of tilting a
little bit away from that. But let's break down what's different about
these two systems and why I think that. (upbeat music) So the first thing I wanna take a look at is the physical design differences between these two systems
and how ultimately, I think this is one of
the main areas where the Series S pulls out a major win. Not just in terms of visuals, I think that is a little bit
more of a subjective thing. Some people are going to really
like the black monolithic tower look of the Series X, other people are gonna
like the color clashing and smaller design of the Series S which is the camp I fall under. I think this is a better looking system as far as the two go especially because I like having my system sideways where this definitely looks better. However, there are also
some very functional reasons why the Series S is a better
choice for some people. And this really comes
down to a combination of not necessarily just the fact
that the system is smaller, but also how it is smaller and where the event
placement for the system is. If you currently own
an Xbox One S or One X, and you're thinking about upgrading to an Xbox Series system, the S is gonna be able to
very easily slot in and out of wherever you currently
have your Xbox one set up. Because again, this is the
smallest Xbox system ever made and the placement event allows it to be in a sideways fashion and have
plenty of room to breathe. And if you like the idea of having the Series S in tower mode, well, what's really
interesting about it is that one way you can have it set up is that instead of having the Xbox logo facing forward
with an USBA available, you could instead have the vent forward, which is how they've really shown it in a lot of promotional images. And what's cool about that is that well, in no matter what kind of set up you have, the front is normally
the least obstructed area because you can see the system clearly and so that's giving the vent a nice place to exit all that heat. By comparison, the Series X is something that I found myself actually needing to double check and think
about every now and then with how I wanna set it up. Not just because it's a larger system, because of how it is larger
and where the vent is placed specifically on the top of the tower or on the far side, if you
have it laying sideways. The fact of the matter is that if you rely on any kind of
traditional TV console setup, if you're using a let's
call them cubbies, I guess, a little slot to place your console down, there's a good chance that unless it's a very large cubby space, you're gonna end up blocking
the vent on the system in one form or another. If not necessarily having it
right up against a solid wall, not having nearly as much space as I think it should be given in order to make sure it breathes. Now, this isn't that
hard of a problem to fix. You just put it on the top shelf. You put it on somewhere where
it's not gonna be obstructed. It's not that large of a deal, but at the end of the day, that does somewhat restricting limit how it can be incorporated into a setup versus the Series S which
very easily sets itself up into basically anything. Now, the big marketing push
for the Series S is that in concept, it should offer
the same kind of performance as the Series X with
the specific exception of not doing 4K Gameplay. Games should be running at the same or very similar frame rates. They should be having these
same graphical effects. It's just whether or
not you want 4K support. Now, for some of you out there, the debate between 4K and
1080p is a pretty easy one. You may have already had a 4K console and you don't wanna go
back or you have a 4K TV and you know you wanna
take full advantage of it, that's great but there are a lot of people who never used a 0.5 system and are wondering how
noticeable the difference is. And the honest truth is, honestly, I think it's
a little over-hyped. Yes, there is a clear
difference between 4K and 1080p visuals. However, depending on not
only the quality of your TV, but the size of your TV and
how far away you sit from it, you might not be able to fully
appreciate these differences. There's actually a lot of
great charts and studies you can find out there that show the kind of
optimal distance to sit from a television based on the resolution and size of your screen. And if you happen to have a very large TV that you don't sit that very
far away from then, yes. A 4K system is going
to look leagues better than what you're seeing on a 1080p screen. However, for a lot of people, if you're working with a smaller screen or you're sitting very far away
from it, in a lot of cases, what your eyes are capable of
perceiving in a 1080p image versus a 4K of image, isn't quite what a lot of
people make it out to be. Again, this isn't to say that
4K isn't better than 1080p. It is, it does have a crisper image and with the right setup, you can absolutely take advantage of this. I merely wanna point out
that for some people, especially depending on what
kind of TV setup you have, you might not necessarily
find it worth spending the extra $200 to get 4K performance when at the end of the day 1080p is gonna look very similar to you. Now, of course, there's also
hinges on the concept of these systems being identical outside of that difference in resolution. When it turns out well, not entirely. The situation is a little
more complex than that. I think when it comes to first
party games for Microsoft, absolutely, that is a mandate
they're trying to maintain that performance wise, these
two systems should be the same. And in my own personal experience, that has been how a lot
of it has worked out. I have tried out different games on both the Series S and Series X, Forza Horizon 4, Gears 5, Gears Tactics, and ultimately the
experience did feel and look very much the same aside from
the difference in resolution. However, we do already
know for a fact that there are games coming
from third-party companies, which are going to have
graphical effects supported on one version of the
system and not the other. A large example of this being Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition, will support ray tracing on the Series X and not on the Series S. So what does this ultimately mean? Well, if you buy a Series S, games at the end of the
day should still perform just as smoothly and cleanly
as they do on a Series X won't being at that low resolution. But when it comes to
third-party companies, there might be the occasional sacrifice of certain visual options in order to make sure
the games run smoothly and it's not gonna be maintained across both versions of the system. So if you absolutely always wanna have the best looking version of a game, not just in terms of resolution
but graphical effects, well it looks like you might
have to go out of your way to make sure you grab a Series X in order to get that kind of performance. It's also worth noting that as far as being used as
a multimedia device goes, the Series S offers
everything the Series X does. They both support 4K playback for media. They both support HDR, they
both support Dolby vision. As far as using these as
multimedia systems go, not just talking about
gaming specifically, ultimately they're gonna offer
you the same thing there. So if you care about 4K
content for movies and film, but not necessarily for gaming, the Series S is going to
still get that for you. And as for the debate of
disc versus disc lists, this is honestly a pretty
straightforward and easy one. If you're upgrading from a previous system and you own physical discs, absolutely you should
be looking at a Series X because you wanna keep using those. If you're getting a NextGen
system for the first time, honestly, Xbox has really
made the heaviest push for good arguments of why you should just go all digital, primarily thanks to game pass. But if you do like the idea
of owning physical disks, whether because you like
the option of returning it, borrowing it with friends,
whatever, then yeah. Pretty easy decision for you. The real trade off to me that
has been a bit of a surprise once actually using these
systems is the storage space. Now going into the
release of these systems, we already knew that there
was a difference in SSD space between these the Series S
offering a 512 gigabyte SSD, whereas these Series X is
offering a full terabyte. However, that's not actually
the full usable space you get. There's always going to
be some part of the SSD that's gonna be taken
up by the system's OS and the other features. And so once that's included, it's not really 512 versus one terabyte, It's really 364 versus 802. And the fact of the matter is is that as we get into NextGen gaming and games are getting larger and larger, 364 is not a ton of usable space. It's enough, you can certainly
install a few games on it, but especially if you're looking
to play major AAA titles, that is going to fill
up very, very quickly. Now, part of the hope for what
would help balance this out is that because the Series S
is a 1080p console not a 4K one games aren't gonna require 4K textures and therefore are gonna
be smaller on the Series S which is true. But the difference in size honestly is not appreciable
enough to really balance out the difference in storage capacities. A good example of this is Forza Horizon 4. Now this is an Xbox one game that is getting a Series X and
Series S optimized version. And when installed on these two systems ended up taking up 85.5
gigabytes on the Series S, a quarter of the full
storage space available for the system, whereas
on the Xbox Series X, it was taking up 96.4 gigabytes, basically only 11 gigabytes more. What this means is that
if you're looking to play a lot of bigger name AAA games, you're going to fill up
the space on a Series S very, very quickly. Now, there are a couple of ways that you can alleviate the situation. One, you could constantly
delete and reinstall games as you need them, which
is a hustle but works. The other option is to
expand your storage. Now, when it comes to expanding
memory on the Series S, at least when it comes to
playing NextGen specific games, the only option right now is buying the proprietary
Xbox card coming from Seagate, which offers an additional
terabyte of storage, which is a major upgrade
at the cost of $220, which just so happens to be
larger than the price difference between a Series S and a Series X. Now, this does get you in total way more storage space in general, but there's definitely
that kind of feeling of you're more likely needing
to buy that expansion for a Series S versus when you have that 800 gigs
available on a Series X, which again, yeah, you'll
probably eventually fill up if you're buying a lot of big name games. But not nearly as quickly, and you're probably not
needing to juggle them around nearly quite as much by uninstalling and reinstalling titles. So where does that leave my final thoughts on this whole debate between
Series S and Series X? I still think that at
that lower price point, even with the smaller SSD space available, the Series S is a great sort
of introductory Xbox console. If you don't own any
gaming console right now, and you just wanna pick
something up to kind of get into gaming, get your feet wet, this is a great choice. It's much more affordable. It's easy to set up and ultimately, you can try out a lot of
different games quickly, thanks to Game Pass. I also think it's a great choice if you're planning on
picking up multiple systems, for instance, let's say you wanna own both a PlayStation and Xbox, this is a cheaper way of having
access to both ecosystems while still being able
to play majority games on PlayStation if you prefer and having this as your go-to
system for using Game Pass or for playing Xbox exclusive titles. However, if you're planning on only buying one system right now
for this holiday season, your eyes are set on Xbox, the Series X is just, honestly, I think the better way to go. Yes, you're spending 200 extra dollars, but you're getting 4K, you're getting support for physical disks. And most importantly, you're
getting enough initial space to support buying lots
and lots of games for it. Again, I don't think the Series S is necessarily a bad investment. I think it's a great pickup if
you're looking to save money. But ultimately, if
you're planning on buying and playing a lot of games, Series X is just worth spending
the extra 200 bucks for it. Because at the end of the day, you're probably gonna end up doing that with a Series S anyways
to buy a memory card whereas the Series X, you might have to buy the
memory card eventually, but it's a lot easier to stop yourself from getting to that point. (upbeat music)
