Owners of older Xbox 360 models will still be able to use Kinect, but will have to use a separate power lead which is expected to be bundled with Kinect when it finally hits shelves. This port will provide power to the Kinect sensor when it launches, meaning that Xbox 360 Slim owners won’t have to use a separate power source for Kinect. Interestingly, the Xbox 360 Slim also has a new port especially for Kinect, Microsoft’s upcoming camera-based motion sensor controller. There are now five USB 2.0 ports on the Xbox 360 Slim in total (two more than previous versions) three on the back, two on the front under a hinged panel.
The old memory card ports have been swapped for two extra USB 2.0 ports, which makes sense given that a recent Xbox 360 firmware update added USB storage to the console. On the other hand, the Xbox 360 Slim has lost some connections too, though not any functions.
Microsoft have finally addressed the 360's lack of WiFi, integrating 802.11 b/g/n wireless networking. While there's no HDMI cable in the box, the Slim does have HDMI output. Speaking of which, when you buy the Xbox 360 Slim you also get a single black, wireless controller, a wired headset and a composite video cable. Over the years, Microsoft has expanded its gaming library so much that the Xbox 360 stands shoulder to shoulder with its newer counterparts. The new Xbox comes with a 250GB hard disk - the same capacity as the Xbox 360 Elite bundle had - as standard. Xbox 360 Games: Experience Intense Gaming At A Light Budget The original Xbox 360 was released in the year 2005, which makes it a quite old console, but this one is still a fan favourite. A hidden button on the bottom end of the Xbox 360 Slim causes a section to drop away, revealing a space for the HDD to be slotted in. The hard drive for the Xbox 360 Slim no longer slots on top of the console either, but slots inside the main body instead. Custom file formats and the like will still form a barrier.
The new drives also swap the old bespoke connection for a standard SATA port too, though we don’t imagine that’ll make it any more possible to use a standard laptop drive in an Xbox 360 Slim. The new Xbox 360 Slim hard drives are much more modest in physical size, measuring just 105 x 20 x 75mm to the older model’s 195 x 24 x 79mm. Most of the space has been saved by a single design too, namely shifting the Xbox 360 hard drive so that it no longer sits bulkily on top of the console in that ludicrously over-sized grey enclosure. That’s not a trimming to be sniffed at, but it does bear pointing out that the Slim isn’t to the Premium as the Macbook Air was to a G4.
So, it’s roughly half a centimetre slimmer and three and a half centimetres shorter, by our reckoning.