Is the Xbox Series S worth it in 2021?

g'day people this is wayne from wing tech and after much waiting and checking i was able to get an xbox series s i wanted to get this console as a i was interested in getting a secondary entertainment machine that i could use when my pc was busy rendering and processing something in the background and b i was interested in the capabilities and value of this system so without further ado let's find out if the console is worth it in 2021 firstly because i'm also a pc gamer let's go over the specs and really emphasize the value of this console hardware wise the xbox series s has a custom apu an eight core 16 thread zen 2 cpu from amd a 20 cu rdna 2 gpu clocked at 1.565 gigahertz a 512 gigabyte nvme ssd and 10 gigabytes of gddr6 ram now granted the comparisons i am about to make are flawed since the components i mentioned are custom you can't really get them in a desktop market but if i try to replicate this in pc tech terms and put an estimated price on it the cpu is roughly speaking at underclock 3700x which right now goes between 200 to 300 us dollars and rdna 2 gpu of the scale at least doesn't exist yet as of this video but if i roughly estimate a price it would probably be a budget sub 200 gpu a 512 gigabyte nvme ssd would go for around 50 to 100 bucks depending on how fast your ssd is ram is a bit low and it's shed but it's gdd r6 so i can't really put a price on that then you have the built-in wireless network adapter motherboard cooling system case operating system and so on so going through the various ports and buttons on the xbox series s you have one usb 3.1 port a receiver and a power button at the front the rear power port storage expansion hdmi 2.1 two usb 3.1 ports and one ethernet port so looking at everything that i've mentioned so far you can have all of this for an msrp of 299 and if you were one of the lucky ones and got this in the xbox all access bundle that's 25 a month over 24 months if you minus the 15 a month it costs to pay for xbox entertainment gamepl is absolutely insane unless you're willing to buy used parts replicating this level of hardware in the gaming pc niche at this price point is really difficult especially as of the time of this video when prices of certain components are inflated now let's take a look at gaming performance and value the series s is targeting a resolution of 1440p when playing games using a 4k upscaler if you're using a 4k screen it can play games at up to depending on how well your tv or monitor supports it in the case of my monitor the acer xv 270 3k i have only been able to get it running at 1080p to access 120fps and i lose quite a bit in order to access that like lower bit color no hdr can't play various forms of media at lower refresh rates etc so in the end i have to settle for upskilled 4k at 60fps if you're playing older titles and you're looking to play them on the newer consoles for the better optimizations the series s does improve the visuals and the frame rate just not to the level that the x does from what i researched online it basically uses the xbox one s as its reference point for its optimizations versus the series x which uses the xbox one x as its reference point so if a game isn't specifically optimized for the series s or x you can expect similar frame rate and resolution targets as an xbox one s the difference being that the series s will hit those targets more reliably and consistently of course if the game does have series s or x optimizations the frame rate and resolution targets are much higher microsoft has a page on their website where they list the games optimized for the series s and x just check that out now back to the value proposition of the xbox series s on the software gaming side i highly recommend getting xbox game pass ultimate even though it's 15 us dollars a month it is worth every single penny by the way for australians it's even better because it cost 16 australian dollars here which is around 12 us dollars a month as of the time of this video but for that monthly subscription you get access to over 100 games available to download and play with new games being added over time any new games developed by xbox game studio will release on game pass the ultimate plan comes with xbox live gold so you get the benefits of that as well microsoft will also throw in extra discounts and free stuff every now and then for example i was able to redeem a 30 day free trial of disney plus which basically lets me binge watch the mandalorian before it expires you will get access to ea play which is another subscription program with even more games and benefits you get all of that for 15 bucks a month just like the hardware the value that you get here is incredible outside of playing games a range of non-gaming and media apps are available similar to the previous generation you can use the series s and x to view netflix amazon prime video dismay plus use various players to view different types of media etc something extra i like to add is that if you pay 19 for a license you can also unlock a mode called dev mode you've probably heard about it from youtube channels like modern vintage gamer and linus tech tips although it's used for developing apps and games as the name implies it does open up some extra functionality if you're a consumer basically it lets you use uwp apps on the series s which opens up a wider range of applications and programs beyond just what microsoft offers you in standard retail mode note that in depth mode you are restricted in a number of ways from what i've been able to research online you can only access files that are two gigabytes or lower you can only access one gigabyte of memory for apps five gigabytes for games apps can only use two to four cpu cores and around forty five percent of the gpu only 64 bit apps are permitted because of these restrictions you're limited in what extra functionality you can squeeze out of the xbox series s in dev mode however one thing you can get out of this as shown by modern vintage gamer is turning your xbox into a decent emulation machine so if you're interested in that the option is there so are there any drawbacks well if you want to play a physical copy of a game or media the xbox series s does not come with an integrated blu-ray player you are limited to using the built-in ssd and certain types of external storage the series s has only 512 gigabytes of internal storage a portion of which is already being used by the operating system so when you actually use it the usable storage size is even less than that if you want more storage than that once again you will need to get additional external storage on top of that the bigger brother the xbox series x has an msrp of 499 dollars it comes with a more powerful gpu a larger ssd and a blu-ray drive if these things are important enough to you that you're willing to fork out the extra 200 or so dollars then the series x is the better option so in conclusion this is the xbox series s worth it for the most part yes but let's clarify if you're looking for a gaming device that has a low cost entry and will give you a lot of gaming for that cost the value of the xbox series s is just ridiculous it is totally worth it xbox series s is also a great secondary entertainment device it's smaller size for a console means you can fit it in more compact spaces and once again that low cost entry and sheer value means you don't have to spend as much money to get that the only things holding it back is the smaller storage the lack of a blu-ray drive and the weaker gpu otherwise microsoft has made both a killer product and a killer ecosystem at this price range with the series s and game pass respectively if you're interested in getting one and you can somehow get it go and get it don't forget to like this video share this with everyone you know and remember to click on the subscribe button and notification bell for the latest updates on this channel thank you so much for watching i'll see you guys next time bye

Channel: WengTech

Views: 5,883

Rating: 4.8133335 out of 5

Keywords: Xbox Series S, Worth it?, 2021, Review

Id: 9lIURqDWrpI

Length: 8min 29sec (509 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 22 2021