From the photos, you can’t really tell just how big the Xbox One console is, but when you compare side-to-side with the Xbox 360, the Xbox One is an absolute boat. This really isn’t a major issue, but for those who already have trouble fitting their Xbox 360 into their home entertainment center, the Xbox One will be even more difficult to fit in.
The original Xbox 360 released in 2005 measured in at 12.15 inches wide, 3.27 inches high and 10.15 inches deep, weighing in at 7.7 lbs. The Xbox One is even bigger than that, measuring in at 13.1 inches wide, 10.8 inches deep and 3.1 inches high. Compared to the PS4, the Xbox One is absolutely huge, but this isn’t a bad thing by any means, and it’ll get smaller over time when Microsoft improves the design of the console in the future.
Take the evolution of past consoles for example. The slimmer design of the Xbox 360 that was introduced in 2010 made the console a lot smaller, as did the slimmer design of the PS3 that was introduced in 2009. Thanks to better manufacturing and smaller components, both Microsoft and Sony were able to slim down their consoles without sacrificing performance.
However, perhaps one of the biggest changes in console design that we’ve ever seen was the PS2. The original “fat” PS2, which was launched in 2000 was gigantic, but four years later, Sony revealed a much smaller redesign of the console. The original PS2 was 11.9 inches long, 7.2 inches deep and 3.1 inches high. The slim PS2 blew those measurements out of the water, coming in at 9.1 inches wide, 6 inches deep and just over an inch thick. The weight of the console was also shaved off by over half, going from 4.9 lbs. to just under 2 lbs.
Will we see a redesign like this with the Xbox One? It’s certainly possible, but we won’t get our hopes up; the PS2 slim was plagued with overheating issues, requiring anyone racing in a 24-hour event in Gran Turismo 4 to put their slimmer PS2 on a block of ice if they didn’t want it overheating.
However, we will most likely see Microsoft issue a redesign for the Xbox One in a few years that will make the console both lighter and smaller, as well as possibly add a few new features to the console in order to reboot sales and get the hype back up, seeing as how gaming consoles last at least five years, with the Xbox 360 just recently celebrating its eighth birthday earlier this month before the Xbox One officially replaced it.
Good things come to those who wait, and if you can wait a few years before picking up an Xbox One, you’ll not only get a slimmed-down, redesigned console, but the price will most likely be dropped a bit, saving you a bit of cash in the process.
Battery Life still is a worrisome area for some who use their smartphones constantly throughout the day. But the issue is nothing like it used to be. Most users can get through a day without having to recharge until they get home from work. We’re starting to see smartphones that push limits higher and Battery Life is one of those areas. I don’t think we’ll ever complain if it keeps improving. Most of the top-selling Tablets can last around the 10 hour range, which seems to be sufficient for many. Perhaps we can begin to dispense with the review tests that run endless video loops to test battery life. They were never realistic anyway. Besides testing battery life this way ignores one of the primary variables that will affect it, and that is the user.
Mobile devices have reached a point in 2013 that I think we can say that regarding speed and performance most users are satisfied using them for daily chores and daily play. Yes, we’ll continue to see bumps in processors and the addition of more cores. In 2014 we’ll probably see a follow-the-leader approach to Apple evolving its A7 chip into 64bit in what it calls a desktop class processor. But except for the geeks who want to squeeze every scrap of processing power out of a benchmark test, we’ve reached a very healthy place for most users.
Smartphones and Tablets are all about multi-touch. And being able to have screens perform smoothly and accurately the minute you touch them is not just key, but paramount. Any sense of lag and the device is toast. What I’ve seen in 2013 makes me believe that there isn’t much out there worth having that can’t pass The Pinky Out Test. That’s using your pinky to scroll up and down a screen while you’re eating greasy food for lunch.
We have reached a point where for some users the cameras on smartphones are more than sufficient. For those users who are moderately picky about their photos there are still distinctions to be made between makes, sensors, and pixel counts. My suspicion is that cameras and their capability will still be a discerning factor for a good portion of the market, but not as much as in the past. I suspect though that our discussion of mobile photography will change to talk about what happens after the shutter has snapped closed.
Mobile users are like little children. Once they learn to crawl, then walk, they want to run, then run faster, then do more things like climb and jump. With technologies that move us closer to using our smartphones as wallets and financial record keepers, advances in security and privacy are going to become key features in consumers’ minds, and not just a way to unlock the phone. For this kind of behavior to take off security and privacy will become an important issue to watch and become even more of a feature we hear about at keynotes. Kids may jump freely from place to place, but many consumers see mobile privacy and security as a leap of faith today.
Whether it be fitness and health accessories, keyboards for Tablets, portable speakers, cases, camera attachments, or what have you, we love to add to our mobile experience by accessorizing. The quantity and quality of available accessories will replace Apps as a topic of discussion going forward. Apple leads here at the moment with a very large accessory ecosystem, but there are plenty of accessories to be found for other makes. Microsoft seems content at the moment to make much of its own, especially with Tablets. But then the accessory market follows consumers.
