I don’t agreed with a lot of what he says, the difference in game will continue to grow as time passes between this and the X. I got a ps5 and a PC. I am a graphic whore and fuck playing at 120 FPS with crappy graphics…but this looks good for backward compatibility and it looks great for emulating. I’ll give it that. And some people won’t give as shit, they happily play at 1080p and lose some graphical fidelity.
I got a Series S about a week ago and I love it. Great power in a small and quiet box. I have a 4K 60fps tv and things still look great. Game Pass is a huge bonus. Series S is without a doubt the real deal and a total next gen machine.
I put out that the upgrade from an Xbox one X wasn’t worth it at this time especially with game pass, I instead got a PS5 because I haven’t had a PS in over a decade. I think I’ll wait, like I planned, to get a series X refresh 1.
Series S owner here. So I read reviews before buying, I seen all the "it doesn't do this, it doesn't do that". After owning it for 3 months I can in fact tell you that it does do anything a Series X can do, maybe not as fast or look as crisp but it really does perform super well. I went from a Gen 1 Xbox One and honestly the upgrade was worth it. If you're still skeptical about making the switch, don't be. It's worth the $300 in every single way.
Especially since some rube will buy your old Xbox you can then get the series s for half price just sold mine for 150 cad could of got 200 if I wanted to wait a week
Really though. No way could you even build a pc with the same specs in that price range. Especially with the supply chain issues. Specs alone justify the purchase. Plus quick resume and ray tracing (where supported) are a plus.
@@infiniteclutchgaming8206 Normally i'd allways advocate for a pc. But this gen and especially this climate the series S is an amazing gaming deal. And i think for most people wanting to play Halo and Forza its a perfect compliment to the PS5. Consoles are the best deal/performance they have ever been.
I bought a Series S after getting frustrated not being able to find a PS5. I absolutely love it. I love Game Pass. Speaking from experience, I think the XSS is perfect for lifer PS players who have never owned an Xbox or built an Xbox library
Literally me. I've never so much as touched an xbox for more than an hour several years ago. I'm taking full advantage of Microsofts respect for backwards compatibility. The fact that I can play more ps3 games on xbox is laughable. Also the entire microsoft catalogue of games I missed out on like Halo and Gears. I'm also finding that I very much prefer and love the controller over my PS4's (haven't held a PS5s yet though). I love it.
I bought the Series S recently, and I'm totally happy with it. I'm not obsessed with having the best graphics possible, and the price and availability made it a great fit. And I'm really impressed with the insane backwards compatibility. I had no idea I would have a whole library of 360 games available for digital download when I bought it!
I got my SS because I was tired of the X and PS5 always being out of stock. And I regret zero money spent on it. This thing is legit. Being able to experience Assassin's Creed Valhalla at 60 FPS when my PC struggles to stay at 50 FPS is huge for me.
Bruh same my pc can't even hit 60 fps at medium settings at 1080p while my series X hits 4k 60 fps easily at "high to ultra" settings ( it looks mostly like very high and some at ultra high for me)
I’ve had the ps5 since release and just got a series s 2 weeks ago. And I must say it is incredible! I’ve been a fan of forza from a far and fortunate enough to get another console so I’m so keen for horizon 5. Horizon 4 and other games look incredible and I have a cheaper 4K tv. Gamepass is so good. Enjoying playing fight night and skate 3 again and looks cleaner too
Some great games I've played that run at 1440p on Series S for those on a 4K panel: *DOOM Eternal* *Dirt 5* *Yakuza Like a Dragon* *Black Ops Cold War* - _between 1200p and 1400p_ *Enlisted* *Back 4 Blood* - _up to 1296p_
Question for Brandon ..I have a 4 k uhd panel at 4K 60 hz ...my series s 4K description says my tv supports 120 hz at 1080p also ...so my question is if I set the S to 1080p 120 hz will the S or my tv upscale the game to 1440p?
@@davida6889 If you set the console to 1080p at 120hz, it will output at 1080p. The only way it will output 1440p is if you set it to 1440p which only supports 60hz.
Hey, question. In your opinion does 1440p or 1080p look better upscale on a 4K TV? I’m getting a Series S in a couple weeks but heard upscaling from 1440p can look uneven
I bought XSS used (1 year), for just 200$. I got rid of my gaming PC, sold my PS4. I used to play a lot, but last 4 years is slower in that department. I can tell you that the machine and xbox pass is one of the best deals I have made in terms of home entertainment!
I had a PS5 the day it came out and sold it last week and bought an Xbox Series S. The Playstation 5 is a great system but I sold it for a profit and I actually like almost everything about the Xbox Series S over the Playstation 5. The look of the system, the controller, the UI, being able to instantly resume a game with quick resume, etc. Game Pass is pretty amazing as well. I think it's a great system and would recommend it to anyone.
If you don’t mind me asking ? Why did you sell your Ps5 other then profit. Were the exclusives boring, lack of content ? Or you just didn’t like the ps5?
@@kolosersoh9153 I really thought I would like the exclusives but the only one I played that I really liked and finished was Ghost of Tsushima, that is a great game. I am sure lots of people love Spider-Man, Last of US, God of War, and Uncharted, so if you are a fan of those games I would definitely recommend the PS5. I just prefer the Xbox system and really like Game Pass. It is just my personal preference.
@@rodsimpson518 that make sense, Thanks on the input. Cause my friends want me to get a PlayStation so I can play with them on more games but I’m not really sure if a PlayStation is for me…
@chemiiix the series x is noticeably better but not by a lot. The biggest downside in getting the s is memory (which should be solved soon through cloud gaming) and the lack of a disc drive. I used my xbox as my dvd player so it was annoying to not have it until I got my series x, but for most who only stream its no factor.
Good video! Love my Series S, even with my 4K TV. You CAN play a lot of the "optimized" games from external storage! Halo Masterchief Collection is an example. Which is awesome, because the that game is huge. I set up my console to install to the USB HDD by default and if the game doesn't play, THEN I move it to the internal storage. This worked great so far!
@@skyrax7 yes! Not all, but some of them do. I set the external HDD as the default drive for downloads. If a game won't run outside the internal SSD, Xbox will let you know, and you can override the install destination for that game.
@@MartinPaoloni that's awesome! One more thing. I've heard people complain about the series s lowering the resolution down 900p just to allow that 120 fps in some games, and in some other games you do get 1080p/1440p, but they run around 30 fps, and not 60/120 fps like microsoft has promised, has this problem been solved with the latest software updates? Or does this keep happening? Have you ever experienced something like that with your series s?
I love how your playing battlefront 2, still one of my favourite games even when I can’t find supremacy or Galactic assault I do prefer the old Bf2 though, the 501st journal is just so good and nostalgic
Subbed. Love the content and you’ve made my mind up about the series S. Definitely going to get one instead of the X. Keep it up and I’m sure you’ll have 100k subs in no time brother.
Many people talk about the fact that this device has only four teraflops of processing power and is supposed to turn the whole generation backwards. While the processing purpose of this device is great for this resolution
@@ike846 teraflop is the floating point of operations a calculation that determines how many processes a gpu can handle but the thing is different brands and architecture are calculated differently so you cannot compare Nvidia to AMD or architecture. Like GCN 4 tflops vs RDNA 2 4 tflops are not equal. From benchmarks RDNA 2 is far more robust and efficient and has more things going on including the ability to do ray tracing. So overall Xbox series consoles are extremely more powerful over their last gen counterparts. This is not even taking into account Xbox leveraging machine learning they created within the Xbox series X/S consoles which should only increase performance once more of velocity architecture and RDNA2 tools are used
@@ike846 i believe its just a metric for processing power. The series x has 12 teraflops and can run games at 4k 60-120 fps vs the series s that can only do so at 1080.
The weird thing is, I own the PS5, Series X that I got on launch.... I play them on my LG 8K Nanocell. I got a Series S about 3 months ago, to play on my 4K AOC monitor. I'm on her all the time! Don't get me wrong, it is lovely to play Cyberpunk or Destiny 2 on my Series X, though there aren't any 8K games, the processor in the 8K TV makes games look insane. But I am always on my Series S lol. I have a little love affair with her haha. So much power in such a little box! I play Warzone, Cold War, BFV, Wasteland 2, Assassins Creed Black Flag and couple very small titles. The litte Series S is a beast but looks so innocent. I would recommend her to anyone, especially for the price.
Justin Catman, when you play Cyberpunk on your XBSX does it at all glitch like crazy like how it was presented on pretty much everyone’s system during launch back in Dec 2020? Other than the 3090 graphic cards while playing it back then couldn’t play the game without hardly any horrible glitches. I too have a XBSX, and was hesitant ab buying Cyberpunk for my system bc I thought it’d just be a waste of time and money. Just curious if you get any fair gameplay or not?
I have both the Series X and S...I keep my Series X hooked up to my 4K TV. When I travel (Covid safety permitting) to a friends place to game it up I bring the Series S with me in my backpack (it's small size is amazing) to play and I still get the same incredible next gen experience as the X at home. I have the Seagate 1 TB S|X expansion card and I use that to bring my games from the X to the S on the go with ease. Microsoft did it right this gen.
This guy is the best, most open reviewer when it comes to console discussions! Too many reviewers talk about on-paper specs and pure numbers, whereas what really matters is the gaming experience which is AWESOME!!! Thank you Julian you are the reason I picked up a Series S and have not looked back :)
Series S is the ultimate companion console - take away for the weekend, hook up to a monitor on your desk for breaks during workday. Does the Job and great for more casual games where you care less about full spec visuals. Stoked with mine.
Some games are optimized for X/S and still are playable of an external... Games like Ori will of the wips, Sea of thieves and Division 2... These games are gen9aware. You can see that at the File info of a game. Only the gen9 games need to be installed on internal to be played... They need to make more gen9aware games if you ask me.... I think the only difference for now is faster loading speeds on real gen9 games.... I use an external SSD, so loading is fast already and not a big difference... Wanted to share this with you all... You make great videos man!
I’ve been looking for a video to make sure the series x was the real deal and I finally found it. I was just unsure about storage expansions and you made it clear about how it works. Thanks
Nice video! I was lucky enough to get a Ps5 last year, but really wanted to try gamepass and finally got the Series S a few days ago. Great little machine!
One of the most annoying things I see in many comments when it comes to the series s. Is that it's going to bottleneck this current gen because of its lowered specs mainly the the 4 TF gpu. And great vid by the way you got a new sub.
Thanks man. I don't care about the spec sheet. I care about the implementation and right now this thing is crushing. For those skeptical we are going to be coming up on a year in a couple months and its still rocking.
People that buy the Series S are people that do not worry about techtalk, but want hassle-free gaming and fun times I have had almost all consoles ever produced, the ones i missing right now are PS5 disc version and XSX, but the PS5 is bulky to say the least and XS to big for my mediastand. Not to mention almost impossible to get hold of if you don't want to pay $1500-2000, that is So i bought 2 XSS, that way we can lan in our family, and with game share, game pass, we only have to have one licence
I bought my second XSS last week, and i must say that as long as you play on 1080P or 1440P and secure a decent external SSD you are fine to go. Sure some games can not be run external, but that is just BS as several achieve similar, if not the same speeds, but hey Microsoft needs to collect the money somehow. And they do not use the Sony method to have customers pay extra for next gen updates. And soon there will be a revision of the XSS with bigger storage and the price itself on the flashcard will decrease as well. $299 to play @ 60 / 120fps, try that with a lowspec PC, if you can find one for 299 that is Almost whisper-quiet, quick resume, lightningfast loadingtimes, RDNA2, updated hud, emulators, extremely small footprint, exclusive XS games and game-pass checks all the boxes for me!
makes me happy to see everyone in this comment section here loving their Series S. I have a Series X, and a PS5, both in my living room, but I fully intend to eventually a Series S for upstairs.
@@ghtraining1 are you still having trouble getting a system? I found good deals on the offer up app. I got a series s and x both for less than $50 markup.
Thanks for making this video man, it really helped me decide to get the Xbox Series S. I need to upgrade my TV big time, so it helps to save that extra money on the console. Now, I just have to find a way to get my hands on one lol
Series s the best option for all us budget gamers, try to build a pc for 300 dollar, I mean something similar specs wise should be a ryzen 5 3600, 16gb ram ddr4, an rx 5500xt u also need a psu, ssd and case, you would need to spend triple the amount of money to get the same result, I'm loving my xbox series s, yes I do, bought it for 200 second hand, 1 month old, try to beat that
Totally. Its a ready to go gaming machine without all the other stuff. It is dang near impossible to build out a comparable pc for the cost. Not to mention find parts
Definitely a good buy right now because I see these in stores everyday but I've never seen a series X or PS5 in stores and I don't want to pay $750+ for one from a scalper so I'll just stick to my $300 series S
For sure I got the S but I´m thinking about the X Just because of 3 games i want.. Halo, BF2042 and Forza5 plus I already have FS like 127gb... so the hard drive will be a problem for that... Hope the price of the external card goes down.
I bought this for my kids' bedroom. I built a closet gaming desk and have the Acer XF243Y with the base PS4 and the XBsS. My 14 year old is a good gamer and enjoyed the 120 fps but my younger son loved Game Pass. In my opinion, the backwards compatibility and the VRR alone make it more than worth a try. Pair it with a monitor and it shines. Play on!
I have been very happy with the performance so far and best thing - it's completely quiet and small. Very good value for the money. I do hope more X/S optimized games though.
That entirely depends on how badly you want to play Nintendo games. Because all the other games not made by Nintendo will look and run better on the Series S.
Here is something worthy of note as an addendum to your video, Julien. If you have a "Home" console and a "Travel" console, if you use digital games, your "Travel" console MUST be connected to the internet for you to play any of your downloaded games. I have yet to be able to find a way around this (ie staying in a hotel with horrible or non existent internet service.) to play games far from home. Is there a way around this brick wall? Great video by the way.
Thanks for putting time into this response for everyone. I think if the console shuts off completely then it will have to re verify with game pass games. I don't think games you own fully need that. Let me know.
@@jdxcoffee hey, will there be a thing in the future that games in lets say 3 4 years will run poorly or not at all on xbox series s? Is the series s a green light for future?
@@BB-pb3hv Personally I think we are going to see the gaming industry playing catch up for a while so a lot of these games that could potentially be "too much:" wont show up for a while. I also fully believe that the S is next gen through and through. I think it is way more capable than it should be at the price point. Its a steal.
Looked up several videos about this. Because I do have a ps5, but I kinda want an xbox now mainly because of the game pass. But I didn’t feel like coming out of pocket for the series x. Plus it’s way harder to find😂. So I feel like the series s is a go for me.
@@deerdust360 sammmeeee I’m on a day one Xbox one rn so I already know the s is going to be more than satisfactory 😂 mine will be here in a week. Whoop
@@jdxcoffee The PS5 is a different experience, catered to a different kind of gamer. I'm not implying it's better, to be clear, I am saying that there is a lot to miss if you don't pick one up eventually.
I got the PS5 a year ago and my son really wanted to start playing Halo. Going against my personal preference to always have the best machine, I decided to go with the Series S because I’ve never owned an Xbox before and because I wanted to save some money. I was shocked at how well this machine performed! I downloaded MK11 and played it then switched to the PS5 and played that and was hard pressed to find any graphic/performance differences, if any at all. I haven’t stopped playing it since I got it and my PS5 is currently collecting dust (at least til more titles come out). I should note that I play on a 43 inch TCL 60hz 4K TV.
I hope the online thing is something new for the Series consoles. I have a One S and it's really hit or miss if I'll be able to play my digital games without a connection. The last time I left to a somewhat rural area on vacation, I was limited to about 4 games out of the 15+ installed. It seems (on my One S at least) that it needs to connect at least once after being unplugged and after that one-time check it works good without connection.
Im finally getting a Series S next week!. Ive been a Playstation guy almost my whole life and I just cant this time there is nothing for me on there because I love old games. My Xbox One is going to be saved for Backwards Compatible disc games I own and my series S will be for next gen and backwards compatible digital games I own. I am curious when it comes to storage is the SeaGate $219 card the only way to expand storage to play Series S and X optimized games? I was confused while watching the video. I want an external SSD but not if I cant put the new Battlefield game thats coming out on there and play it like normal
Most of the Optimised games do need to be on Internal or "expanded" storage. Some can be played off "External". If it is a game that is not out yet, chances are it will need to be local. But you can always just transfer on and off with an external hard drive in 10-15 minutes. chances are you wont be swapping between too many games in one sitting. If you are, than this might not be the best system for ya. I hope this helps!
Yes and no. As Julienne has pointed out the Expansion Card (EC) is going to be needed for the next gen games that only run from Internal and/or the EC. However, there are plenty of games that will load and run very well from either an SSD or HDD. I bought the Seagate Barracuda 1TB SSD and decided to use the Seagate 8TB HDD HUB and they both work fine. The SSD is for legacy games that I want to load fast, though in practice I'm not seeing a huge increase over the HDD. So, you may be able to get by without the SSD. The EC on the other hand is a must have, imho, since more and more next gen games will only play from Internal/EC storage space. As for me, I try to keep the next gen games to ones I really, really want. Like Halo Infinite (coming), MSFS, Halo MCC (I want it to have the fastest loading time) and Forza/Horizon. Many question getting the EC due to price and being close in price to the SX when you add the SS and EC together. As if the SS isn’t worthy of the investment. I have found that it is well worth the expense especially if it is going to be your only Xbox Series console. I have a 1X and the SS. So, getting the EC was a no brainer! With it, you’ll actually have more storage than the SX by itself. Anyway, hope this helps.
@@Halo9K This helped very much. I got the Series S already full and the expansion card down to about 300 GB left so im going to have to expand again but its either going to be the 1 TB Seagate SSD game drive they made for the One X a few years ago that will still work like an SSD just not like the expansion card or a 2 or 3 TB external HDD for everything backwards compatible and so when I need the space on my Card or internal storage for optimized games I have a place to transfer things because I know its gonna get to the point I need ANOTHER expansion card 🙃
@@SwampFox178 Glad to help. The EC gets bad press due to the expense BUT I think it’s worth the money especially for the SS precisely because of the lower price of the SS. I do think it’s a deal breaker for the SX unless you have more money than common sense. Anyway, glad you've found a storage solution that works for you. Happy gaming!
That memory card, while good, is not necessary for expanding storage. I have a video about it all. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XgW8RzY5xIU.html
I used a cheap ssd and a usb 3.0 memory stick to expand my memory on my one x . It sped up load times on the one x but best of all. I was able to hot swap them into my series s without issue. The one game I did time was Borderlands 3 , 2m 53s xb1 hdd , 2m 28s external usb stick on xb1 and before optimisation on series s 53s to load . If people can’t get a next gen yet they can use usb 3.0 128+gb and from end of the year xcloud app should be available for xb1 system. From personal experience it loads almost as fast, son was using it with old pc and I was on series s playing FH4. When in his game I would have to wait for it to load in but when he was using cloud it was much quicker. Also 1st time seeing this channel, left like and took ages to write this using Apple Pencil to type, shaky hand , multiple deletes required. Main point: this was recommended to me by RU-vid, your hard work is paying off. Congrats '
I’m having to sell my series X to get truck repairs. But friend will sell me his series S to hold me over til can get X again. Will I notice big difference besides storage?Thank you
@@wakaflockaproject Xbox one X gpu has 6 Tflops and 40 cu's at 1,174 Ghz. Xbox seires S gpu is 4 tflops with 20 cu's at 1,565 Ghz. The series S cant really handle ray tracing with the rdna 2 feature anyway. So the X 📦 One X gpu is better.
Got the ss as a gift shortly after Christmas. It's still a really solid system! I love it. It's become my entertainment hub and I've downloaded a bunch of current and older games from game pass : D
The current generation gaming consoles such as Sony PlayStation 5, Microsoft Xbox Series X, and Microsoft Xbox Series S pack in enough power to run games at 120 frames per second. For streaming video, the Series X can do native 4K and upscale to 8K, while the series S upscales to 4K. The PS5 console supports the HDMI 2.1 specification, and it also supports 4K 120Hz video output. Nintendo Switch OLED Dock Can Output 4K and 60fps; but Switch Itself Cannot. ... While the original Nintendo Switch uses the HDMI 1.4 cable (which could support 4K but only at 30fps), the OLED model has a HDMI cable that supports 4K and 60fps; possibly HDMI 2.0 or higher. Nintendo Switch OLED dock is 4K-ready, even if the console isn't. (Pocket-lint) - Further proof has emerged that the new TV dock that comes with the Nintendo Switch (OLED model) is capable of outputting 4K Ultra HD video. The HDMI cable supplied with the console is too.
The only two problems I have are no disc drive and the storage size. Physical games are usually much cheaper to buy and can still be traded or sold. Also the series x has almost double the storage. If you spend more on storage you are almost at the price of a series x, especially if It is the seagate SSD. Still a very cool and powerful system though for the price it's kinda amazing what it can do.
Let me debunk the debunking with Ray Tracing on the Series S :-P. Can it do it? Technically yes. However, you are unlikely to see much use of it on the Series S. So the GPU architecture RDNA 2, can do it. But RDNA 2 is crap at Ray Tracing. It just is. It's AMDs first attempt at it. It's like the RTX 20XX series Nvidia cards. It can do Ray Tracing, it's just not a good idea. As Chris Rock said: "You can drive your car with your feet, it doesn't make it a good effing idea". Ray Tracing on the Series S would have a performance hit, the console just can't afford to have. I have one, I'm very fond of it, but it is not going to be doing Ray Tracing. Everything else I agree with the video. The value of the Series S is absolutely INCREDIBLE. For the UK price of £250, the quality of the console is mind blowing. If you still have a 1080p TV, this is the one to get, and it really doesn't feel like it's a cheapo product. It's hard to describe. The only real difference is the lower performance GPU... But games still look incredible on it. Those who mock it are annoying, because it's not aimed at them. If you want something more powerful, like any PC part, you get the more powerful product. That doesn't take away from this.
The fact that you just said dope and rad in the same video has me sold. Luckily, I have an Xbox Series S on the way, but it’s cool (just thought I’d throw another old school phrase in there for you - I’m 41 btw), that this was worth the purchase. I’ve been on PS4 for years now and fancied a change, and the fact that PS5 and Xbox Series X is nowhere to be found, made this the only choice. Good to know it’s going to be a good one. Nice video. Keep up the good work 👍 Oh and forgot to mention, it would be good to get a video from you on what you think are the best Xbox games at the moment, if possible. Cheers.
I got my Xbox series s a week ago and I'm loving it. Sold my Xbox one S for $200 and got the series s for $249. I still can't believe for that price you get next gen gaming on a budget. Then there's game pass and it's awesome. Pretty much the future of gaming in my opinion. You can take this awesome light console with you on the go and with game pass you have plenty to play. Two features I love are instant on and quick resume. My favorite features on any console period. The obvious con is storage but otherwise you can't go wrong with the Xbox series s. I'm normally a PlayStation guy and this excellent budget console convinced me to stay on Xbox which I didn't think would happen.
