Xbox Series S Review : Small Size, Big Power!

i've been a nintendo fanboy since my gaming beginnings from the game boy to the wii to the ds lite the new 3ds xl and then finally the nintendo switch i've heavily enjoyed playing games like breath of the wild animal crossing new horizons pokemon and super mario odyssey but i really wanted to try something new so i took the step to pick up an xbox series s [Music] this is my first ever xbox and i'm super excited to try out all the brand new kinds of games having brand new experiences seeing the amazing graphics listening to new stories and stepping into new kinds of adventures and after having played intensively for the last month and a half i think i'm ready to share with you guys my opinions on the xbox series s so without any further ado [Music] welcome to my xbox series s review [Music] i absolutely love the design of the series s it's got this understated simple minimalist look to it that'll make it easy to fit into any setup not only because of its simple look but also because of its amazing form factor for the power it packs it's amazingly small about the size of a small shoebox and here's how it looks compared to the ps5 and just brother in the xbox series x as you can see the series s looks comically small in front of both of them the xbox can be placed in two different ways upright or flat however you choose to place it just make sure that you don't obstruct any of the vents or the exhaust at the top as far as connectivity goes the console has a vast array of ports the power input which has no external brick the storage expansion slot in case you'd like to expand your storage further an hdmi 2.1 port three usb 3.1 ports two at the back and one on the front and an ethernet port the series s is an all digital console meaning there's no disk drive here so if you're holding on to a large existing collection of physical copies of xbox games this isn't the console for you before we talk more about the xbox experience let's talk about what you'll use to experience it the new enhanced controller the xbox controller has a great design it's a good size and it feels great in the hand it's completely matte and has this nice texture that you can feel all around the bottom of the controller giving extra grip and it's even on the triggers the build quality is great the plastic feels solid and it doesn't creak anywhere the buttons feel great and even after hours and hours of play time the sticks are nice and sturdy i just wish that the buttons weren't as loud as they are have a listen the triggers feel amazing too unlike my switch pro controller they're analog and provide varying levels of input for the amount that they're being pressed down so in games like forza motorsport you can see how the analog trigger works this is completely new to me another completely new thing to me was the strength of the vibration like i said i come from using the nintendo switch pro controller even that's a great controller but this was such a huge upgrade at first the vibration was so strong that it was distracting and i even considered turning it off but i ended up getting used to it and it feels great it's a lot more immersive even the triggers vibrate slightly it may not be the same as the ps5's adaptive triggers but hey it's something the controller also sports a usbc port for wired connectivity and the headphone jack so you can plug in your favorite headset the controller also has a dedicated capture button so you can take screenshots and gameplay captures easily in the xbox controller settings menu the functionality is completely customizable so you can make each button behave the way you want it to you can even assign different profiles to each controller so if i were to turn on the xbox with my controller it would automatically sign me in now i don't know if this is a pro or con but the controller doesn't have an inbuilt battery it uses two double-a batteries and if you're going to be using it with your headset plugged in all the time like i am i must stress i highly recommend picking up a battery pack or at least a pair of rechargeable batteries you'll thank me later battery life with the headset plugged in lasts about four days with medium to heavy usage during my testing time i was unable to test without headset plugged in since my monitor does not have an audio output so expect that to be a lot longer if you're going to be using it on its own with these two things out of the way let's talk about the experience let's talk about what's under the hood first the series s sports some seriously impressive specs similar to those of the series x but they're just underclocked these specs really don't matter at all but i'll tell them to you anyway for the sake of the review it's got an 8 core custom amd cpu gpu that can output up to 4 teraflops of power 10 gigabytes of gddr6 ram a maximum render resolution of 1440p with 4k upscaling up to a frame rate of 120 fps with 512 gigabytes of blazing fast ssd storage out of which only 365 is available but we'll talk about that a little later first let's talk about your home base the xbox dashboard it has a great simple look to it that can be customized to your liking you can change the color of the theme and make your background whatever you like i do wish it was a little less cluttered though but that's probably because i'm used to the super simple and minimal interface on the switch now on to gaming obviously the first thing that stood out to me when i started playing on the xbox was the huge jump in graphics now i play on a 1080p 75hz freesync samsung monitor so i haven't been able to try out 1440p 120 frames per second or hdr in order to use these features though make sure that you have a compatible hdmi cable the one that comes with the xbox works great i have been able to use variable refresh rate though since my monitor supports amd freesync but if the games look great on my normal monitor i can't imagine how they must look on hdr displays the series s renders at 1440p natively and if you're playing on a 1080p panel it'll super sample the 1440p to 1080p output and upscale the output if you're playing it on a 4k tv the gaming experience is absolutely wonderful everything looks great and stuff loads bloody fast thanks to the new solid state drive inside with that comes one of my favorite features quick resume this allows you to switch from one game to another seamlessly bypassing loading screens and taking you straight to where you left off it's like switching between apps on your smartphone here's how it is in action it's insanely fast and it even works after the console has been completely restarted the first game i played was forza horizon 4 and oh my god that is a beautiful game i love racing games so this felt like home immediately the sounds the scenery and the gameplay are absolutely stunning i loved how easy it was to just jump in and feel like a natural within a few minutes of starting the game i also really like that you can select your level of difficulty i really enjoy just driving around the massive map it has a sort of relaxing feeling the level of detail in this game is absolutely insane and overall this has to be one of my favorite titles the interior of every car in the game has been modeled and it's fascinating to be able to step into a car put it through its paces out on the road and then snap some pictures in photo mode and another great thing is how simple or complex the photo mode can be you can just simply snap the photo or you can tweak a bunch of settings and make sure that your photo comes out just the way you want it to now this is a series x and s optimized title meaning it's been optimized to take full advantage of the brand new hardware upgrades present in the series s another optimized title is rocket league i play this game a whole bunch with my friends so being able to play in a smooth 60 fps at full resolution looks great and is a nice upgrade over the switch version of rocket league that extra frame rate really makes a difference and it also supports 120 fps alright at a slightly lower rendered resolution call of the sea is another title that i've just started that's optimized for the series s as well even with its unique art style the game looks neat and plays great but what about titles that aren't designed with the series s and x in mind the xbox is backwards compatible with every xbox title so you can play previous generation xbox games too for games that aren't optimized the series s plays the base xbox one version along with any available enhancements and not the xbox one x version though these titles don't look as impressive as optimized titles it's nowhere near a deal breaker stuff still looks great and seeing how great optimized titles look it shows that there's still a lot of processing power to spare let's take a look at some non-optimized titles i've been playing a lot of grand theft auto 5 and even after so long it still looks so great granted it has received graphical upgrades over the years this is the title i completely missed out on playing because i didn't have a system powerful enough to play it on the series s it plays at a nice 60 frames per second i've also been playing another favorite star wars jedi the last order it's my first star wars game i love the story the combat and the visuals the series s gets an fps boost to play at 60 frames per second but it still seems to be running the base xbox one version apart from cutscenes there seems to be a resolution drop during gameplay it's noticeable but then again nowhere near a deal breaker developers are working hard on bringing next-generation upgrades to some existing games both the titles i just spoke about have been confirmed to be getting series x and s optimized versions soon and i can't wait to see the improvements those bring now all the footage you've seen so far is captured directly from the series s you can record onto an external drive or the internal one so sharing your achievements or funny clips is even easier while playing games accessing the system menu is still instantaneous and fluid i have noticed a tiny amount of lag for animations in the quick menu when games are open but i guess that's to be expected at some level i haven't been able to test any titles with ray tracing as of yet but from what i've seen from other people's footage it looks amazing one of the most amazing things is that even while the series s is under heavy workloads it manages to stay whisper silent never once have i heard the fan and i still can't unless i bring my ear up to it by far the biggest selling point for the xbox series s is game pass it's like netflix but for games pay a monthly fee and you can download anything from over 350 titles with a catalog that's being frequently updated with new titles and even day one releases with the inclusion of the ea library with ea play it's an amazing value for money with game pass practically shaping the core of the series s which is what makes it a good deal though there are so many titles to choose from you'll most definitely encounter a full ssd sooner or later as i said earlier even though the series s has a 512 gigabyte ssd only 375 gigabytes are free to use the rest is taken up by the operating system and for other tasks so by the time you load a few heavy titles and some other smaller ones you'll be looking at a full disk call of duty warzone alone eats up one third of the space available one good thing though is that since the series s won't make use of 4k textures it only downloads the assets it needs thereby reducing the file size by a good amount and in some cases like the sea of thieves a drastic drop from around 50 gigabytes to 17. i had an old usb 2.0 hard disk lying around for which i simply swapped the casing to support usb 3.0 you can pick up a good case from amazon and with this you can store and play older xbox titles for the new series x and s optimized titles you'll only be able to store them if you want an external storage solution that allows you to play and even store these newer titles you'll be forced to pick up the seagate expansion card that comes with a sadly eye watering price tag speed using a hard disk isn't too bad though transferring a 90 gigabyte game took the hard disk around 40 minutes and it still retains support for quick resume in case you'd like to use the xbox as an entertainment system too it has a whole bunch of media apps ranging from netflix to amazon prime apple tv plus and so much more you can even link the series s to your alexa or google home devices allowing you to control the xbox with your voice you can ask alexa to turn on your xbox or even launch a specific title an extension of the xbox experience is in the apps for your smartphone that allow you to check achievements play time download new games manage your xbox and even play remotely which is what i've been using to stream gameplay to my friends over microsoft teams since we're all stuck in lockdown now there are a few things that i would like to see improved and the first would be the interface of the xbox dashboard though i've had no problems with it i do wish it looked a little more modern i love the look of the ps5 interface and i would love for the xbox to place a better emphasis on the games on the main screen instead of stuff like last used apps and game pass suggestions the last thing i'd like to see is more first party exclusives from microsoft the playstation has some amazing games like the last of us in spider-man and with this new generation it's time for microsoft to step it up overall coming from the nintendo switch the entire series s experience is a great one and it would have been amazing to see sony have something similar if you don't have too much time to spend on games and you're a casual gamer like me this console is the perfect pick it's also perfect for people who own multiple consoles like a ps5 or a switch and want another secondary machine to play the latest exclusives and with its price tag of 299 dollars being able to jump into the next generation console universe with a small and affordable powerful package is an awesome deal and you've made it to the end of this video leave an awesome series s and your favorite game in the comments section down below hit that like button subscribe and hit that bell icon so you don't miss any future notifications thank you so much for watching and i'll see you in the next one you

Channel: Parikv99

Views: 28,235

Rating: 4.9252005 out of 5

Keywords: xbox, Xbox Series S, Series S, Xbox review, Xbox Series S Review, Microsoft, Forza, Star Wars Jedi, Gaming, Xbox Controller, Series S review, Rocket League, Forza Horizon 4, GTA V

Id: k2TbzJ7To1s

Length: 13min 10sec (790 seconds)

Published: Tue May 18 2021