Sony has desperately needed a price cut for the PS3, which it now has received, among other things. The PS3 Slim — technically it’s just called a PlayStation 3 — is about a third lighter and smaller than the previous console. The Cell CPU in the new PS3 is built using the 45nm process, and combined with updates to other parts of the hardware, the console uses less than half of the power of a first gen PS3. It’s still unknown whether other hardware, mainly the RSX graphics chip, is also built using the new 45nm process, but considering the improvements on power efficiency, it doesn’t really matter at this point.

Spec wise, the PS3 has a 120 GB hard drive as standard (which can be replaced by any 2.5″ hard drive of any size), but like the other model, it can’t play PS2 games (PSOne are all playable). It’s also a more stripped down version — there’s no card reader, only has two USB ports, and a stripped down WiFi without draft N support, which is kind of a shame, as almost all devices support the far superior N draft. The new console has the same slot loading 2X Blu-ray drive, and we experienced it to be noticeably quieter when watching Blu-ray movies. Overall, the console seems to be running cooler and quieter, especially during Blu-ray movie playback, as mentioned before. READ ON »