Sony PS3 500GB Super Slim Console (PS3)

Product Information

After powering up the machine, it auto-recognises the presence of a new drive and the user is asked if he wants to make the switch from flash to hard drive storage. As we noted in our 500GB Super Slim hands-on, this is a more simply designed PlayStation 3 using lower-grade materials than its predecessor.

It looked a premium product, but in terms of size it could give some home cinema amps a run for their money. Our next test subject is the existing 500GB Super Slim, giving us a direct head-to-head comparison opportunity between the two major European SKUs. I am selling my PS3 as I no longer have the time to play it, however was unable to find the hdmi cable for it other than that it has been kept in very good condition with adequate airflow.The Slim introduced a new HDMI controller that added a very mild noise to the output - something we noted a while back when we used it for gaming performance analysis. This was probably to be expected bearing in mind that PS3 hard drives are all encrypted with a per-unit key. We ran tests on several games: Gran Turismo 5's install is the stuff of legend, the kind of unoptimised dumping of data that is entirely at odds with the level of technological achievement found elsewhere in the game.

Blu-rays, DVDs or CDs can still be spun, and the PS3’s multimedia skills remain unchanged: you can stream content from networked devices and through on-demand services such as Sony’s own SEN ( Sony Entertainment Network) and BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, and 4oD. Hard drives struggle to cope with it, resulting in obvious low-res textures that struggle to resolve into the higher-resolution versions without some often extraordinary lag. Unfortunately, GameOS is geared towards a single storage point and it's clear that Sony didn't want to undertake the significant development work required to support multiple devices concurrently. Gamer Network Limited, Gateway House, 28 The Quadrant, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 1DN, United Kingdom, registered under company number 03882481. PS3 is the most advanced computer system that serves as a platform to enjoy next generation computer entertainment contents in the home, realised through the combination of Cell and RSX processors.Other games that aggressively stream data through the cache may see similar unforeseen issues emerge.

Expect this to change over time - we know that the Cell is being shrunk down to 22nm while 28nm is a good fit for the RSX.

The PS3 can’t match a dedicated budget Blu-ray deck such as Sony’s own BDP-S390 or Panasonic’s DMP-BDT220, but detail levels are good, colours are nicely judged and motion is handled well enough. Having Giga-bit Ethernet and a pre-installed hard disk drive (HDD) as standard in PS3, users will be able to download a variety of contents as well as access on-line games and services over the network. Essentially the flash chip data is copied across to the new drive, while any existing data on the HDD needs to be wiped to accommodate it. We grabbed a series of lossless 1080p 24-bit RGB images from Daytona USA running on a launch model PS3, then used the photo viewer to display them on the same console, and on the Slim.

Textures are faster to resolve and the jarring effect of watching pixellated artwork coalesce into their higher-resolution versions is less of an issue. Before the Super Slim launched, there were rumblings that you could take your existing PS3 drive and simply dock it into the new hardware, continuing to game on as per normal. After much eyeballing, we can't tell the difference, and as such we have no hesitation recommending any PlayStation 3 as a brilliant Blu-ray player.All models of the new PS3 super-slim are kitted out with all the same ports as the Slim - two USB ports at the front, HDMI and component video interfaces, optical (SPDIF) audio and Ethernet, although frustratingly there's still no HDMI cable included in the box. One thing we should point out is that all our comparisons were based on entirely empty hard drives - these will lose some performance over time as they become fuller and as fragmentation takes hold. The big news in terms of its design, though, is that disc tray - gone is the touch-sensitive control from the original PS3, and even the bread-and-butter button from the Slim.