Xbox 360 Elite Q&A

by Christopher Grant on Apr 27th 2007 9:50AM

We've spent some quality time with the Xbox 360 Elite that arrived yesterday, and are ready to answer some of those pesky little questions that you may have lingering. Got any more? Post 'em in the comments and we'll do our best to get you an answer.

Q: What color is it?
A: It's black.

We kid, the rest of the questions are handily contained after the break. But seriously, it is black.

Q: Which DVD drive is in the Elite?
A: Neither our unit nor the model that Llamma cracked open sported the "super-quiet" DVD drives that have made their way onto regular Xbox units. Instead, they both sport the Hitachi GDR-3120L which, when that disc gets going, is impressively loud.

Q: Is the unit less loud / as loud / louder than the current Xbox 360?
A: We'll look at this as idle system noise, beyond the not super-quiet Hitachi drive. Since the Elite sports the same 90nm processors, therefore requiring similar cooling measures, the fans in the two units produce a nearly equal amount of noise, though there is a difference in tone (which may be related to the fans in the Elite being different, or just newer).

Q: What's the manufacturing date of the Elite?
A: Ours has a born-on stamp of 03/04/2007, while our Xbox 360 premium is 11/5/2005. It's just a wittle baby!

Q: How does the Elite's HDMI output compare to the composite cables?
A: Since both connections look great on our 3" black & white Watchman, we'll defer to our friends at Engadget who hooked both up to a 46" 1080p display. Not surprisingly, they weren't able to discern a notable difference between the two either. That's why we're content with our Watchman.

Q: What is that strange audio-only cable for?
A: While HDMI supports audio, you may want to run a dedicated optical or stereo audio line to a receiver. Since both of those outputs are contained inside the Xbox 360's proprietary AV port, they've included this handy little device.

Q: How does the data migration tool work?
A: Well, how to put this? It's ... cumbersome. Check out our hands-on for our thoughts on the process, some pics of the device, and scans of the manual. If you purchase an Elite, you'll be able to get the Transfer Kit for free through Xbox.com.

Q: Is the Elite region-free?
A: We don't have any foreign Xbox 360 games to test this one with, but we have no reason to believe that the Elite marks a region-encoding strategy shift for Microsoft.

If you're considering upgrading and want to know how the Elite stacks up to your current Xbox 360, for the most part, you can consider the Elite identical, save for the larger 120GB hard drive, HDMI output, and (of course) the 1337 new color scheme.

Tags: HDMI, Xbox-360, xbox360elite

Reader Comments (74)

While I am very tempted to upgrade to the Elite, I'm going to hold out for the 65nm chips.

Engadget who hooked both up to a 46" 1080p display. Not surprisingly, they weren't able to discern a notable difference between the two either

wtf!!!!!!!!!!!!

1080p is 1080p no matter how your transmit it. If your tv accepts 1080p over componet then there is no difference. If you thought differently you may have bought into the hype of other consoles. To tell the truth I dont see any difference in my PS3 with componet or hdmi except on games that cant be upconverted from 720P to 1080I. Those games show up at 480P on one of my 3 hdtvs and that sucks. Since its the tv I play most of my games on.

The truth is exposed, Engadget bloggers aren't really geeks, but old people who doesn't know any different.

Lame, it should've had 65nm and quiet drive to be truly Elite, I've been waiting with my purchase of a 360 for a long time so I don't feel screwed after wise, but it's becoming more and more tempting to just go get it now!! NO, MUST STOP SELF!! BLAAaRrgH

@jason

But how many TV's accept 1080p over component?

jason

when i switched my PS3 to HDMI there was a major difference in the lighting and sharpness on Motorstorm & Resistance.

Jack: Did you do a proper test or did you just switch the inputs and marvel at how much better HDMI is?

Both of those games are 720P and look considerably better over HDMI since I dont have a tv that does 720P hooked up to the console. They are 480P on my 2 year old Samsung tv. It might be the same for yours.

Can I have your Elite, Joystiq?
I promise to give it back the second it Red Rings.

Iscariote

Well first I compared 720p to 1080i on Motorstorm. Liked 1080i better. Then I hooked up the component cables and checked out Resistance. The lighting was alot better with HDMI. I have a 52" Hitachi.

Ha Sony will do the same. Its common knowledge(thanks to NIN) that different iterations of hardware boost sales period-DS=DS lite Gamecube=Wii I kid I kid

Besides that, the Wii is reaching some kinda crazy PONG-like status. The analysts are getting one thing right, interest is not dying down. Its growing.

Just felt like adding that.

@ jason w

"Those games show up at 480P on one of my 3 hdtvs and that sucks."

Wow, man, that sucks. You should probably just wipe your tears on all that MONEY you have. Christ.

You've had this new 360 for a day now. Is it still working? How long can it go without crashing? Did they upgrade the warrenty for this version?

My experience is the same as Engadget's. I have both a 360 and PS3 connected to the same 1080p HDTV. The 360 is set to 1080p via component and the PS3 is doing 1080p via HDMI. I can't any difference in picture quality between the two. Jack says he saw a difference in his PS3 when switching and maybe that's true. Maybe the PS3's component output does have issues, but the 360's component output is superb.

urge.. to.. upgrade.. fucking.. dead..

Oh well, there's always

360 3>

Damn l33t speak and HTML fighting.

Meant to say
360 Extreme

Jack of No Trades,

It could totally be your TV, or maybe you just got sharp eyes, but my guess is that your TV is just lousy at component, because assuming you have a LCD, the TV has to de-interlace the image, as all LCD TV's have progressive image natively, and if your TV happens to be better at de-interlacing digital images than component images, that could be the reason. Weren't the 1080i/480p hybrids some of the first HDTV's around? It wouldn't be weird for them to have this kinds of glitches.

Well Jerk face (funny name) its called a college degree and hard work. It takes time. I bought a 17inch first then a year later bought a 32inch tube tv then a year or so later got a 42 inch dlp. None are really expensive units.

With component images I actually meant analog images.

I'll hold out for the 65nm processor and hope they put that CPU and HDMI to a Core. I've already bought the new HDD and a black controller.

"Well Jerk face (funny name) its called a college degree and hard work. It takes time. I bought a 17inch first then a year later bought a 32inch tube tv then a year or so later got a 42 inch dlp. None are really expensive units. "

Thank you, Jason.

Everyone seems to think HDTVs are this somehow unreachable place for many people. Let's just put it this way...

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8185395&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat95100050004&id=1164155949929

That is roughly what a comparable size 40" CRT would have ran 10 years ago.

VAROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! WHIIIIIIIIIIR WHIIR

Thats the sound of a cheapo, 12x DVD drive used for gaming purposes... thats what you get for higher data transfer speeds in a legacy format.

I got extremly fed up waiting for a quiet 360 so opted for the PS3. I can't even hear the PS3 from more than a few feet away, its really quiet. It seems crazy MS did not fix this noise issue with the Elite.

@Konny

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir!

That's the sound of a PS3 after 30 minutes playing a BluRay movie... BluRay playback heats the PS3 something fierce and likewsie, the fan gets a going. For most gaming applications, PS3 is quiet as all hell (I hear my Wii when playing more than my PS3) but don't pretend PS3 is always quiet. BluRay movies makes it complain often. And my neighbors too... but that's just because of the surround sound, owning Crank, Casino Royale, and NIN concert in BluRay.

I just dont get the PS3 is so quiet argument. I turned mine on lastnight to download the NG demo and the damn thins sounded like it was going to explode this morning when I woke up. The system is a nice bluray player but lacks games (for now) but dont make it out to be something it is not. http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/15/console-showdown-which-produces-the-most-noise/

Hi,
Got my elite last friday at k-mart. There's nothing great about it. Except the blackness but other then that I like it. Mrunloading is my gamertag

Brett

I have a 46" Sharp Aquos LCD and it supports 1080p over component. Games look amazing, so i have very little reason to upgrade to elite. The only reason for me to upgrade would be to free up a component input, because right now, my Wii and my old XBOX are fighting for it. But, since neither gets much use, things are fine.

Can you output from HDMI & composite/component at the same time??????????????????????? (this would be used to play in HD over HDMI while at the same time send the second output to a computer to record game footage)

@26

That news item is a bunch of sh!t. Just look at the comments to see the truth. I mean, damn, it has the Wii listed as being nearly as loud as the 360. Total and complete BS. That alone invalidates that news item. I have all 3 systems and the 360 is far and away the loudest. My 360 is louder IDLE than the other two when they are playing games. When the DVD drives spins up is sounds like a hovercraft has entered my room.

When you first turn on the PS3 is fairly damn quiet. After it's been working for a while the fan speeds up and you do hear a 'whooosh' sound from it, but it is far less objectionable than the noise the 360 produces.

The Wii has a somewhat noisey drive when reading information. You can hear the laser moving around pretty easily. It also produces a high pitched whine. It's the sort of noise you normally don't notice until it stops and you suddenly realize you were hearing it without realizing it. But overall it might be the most quiet. I don't find the PS3 or Wii to be too loud.

All that said, the 360 is still far and away my favorite system. But I'll seriously be considering a trade-in once the 65nm chips are in place in the hopes that the cooling will be quieter and that I can score a quieter DVD drive.

Do you play gears, brett?

@jack of no trades
The discrepancy lies with the system or your tv. For instance, my tv looks better with the vga plug rather than the componet. Both due 1080p on my set, both are analog signals yet it looks a little better over vga, while componet the colors look a little better. I keep it on vga because the sharpness and better detail in darker scenes.

Also, 1080i vs 1080p shouldn't look much different unless the game natively supports it. When set to 1080p on the system the 360 upscales it, when set to 720p or 1080i your tv will change it to 1080p if that is the native resolution of the your monitor as lcd and plasma can only display content at their native resolution. So it comes down to whether your tv or system has a better scaler. On my set I think my tv does a better job so I leave it at 720p and let the tv do the work, though it's extremely minor.

That's bizarre. I thought all 360s made after November of 2006 were getting the quieter Benq drives? Am I missing something?

I own both and multiple HD's, there is no noticeable difference between HDMI or component, or visual quality of PS3 and XBOX360, I've gone through 5 360's and 2 PS3's, and the 360 is louder; I have now issued the bottomline on those two subjects, carry on.

*****Hey Joystiq Eds -*******

Please update the QA section labeled Q: How does the Elite's HDMI output compare to the composite cables?.

You meant to say "component cables" NOT composite cables.

"Everyone seems to think HDTVs are this somehow unreachable place for many people."

An $1100 TV is unreachable for many people.

Hell, my car payment, rent, cable, internet, electric and cell phone together are less than the cost of the "affordable" TV you linked to.

Hey Joystiq, thanks for the article. I was going to wait to get an elite until I heard about how loud it was. Now I know. I have a 2 story house, and I'm interested in developing for the 360 via XNA, but running up and down the stairs on every compile is idiotic. I've been waiting to get a second one until they made a quiet box. *sigh* I sure wish xbox gave a crap about quality.

For those of you wondering...here is the difference between HDMI and Component cables. The HDMI or high definition multimedia interface, is an all digital signal. So, you loose none of the signal quality. Also, since it is all digital, it does NOT matter what kind of HDMI cable you get, it either works or it does not.

Component cables start with a digital signal, then the cable converts the signal to analog to pass thru, finally the signal is reconverted to digital. So, you do loose some signal quality in the transfer, especially if you do not use a high quality and expensive component cable.

I have an HDTV with both HDMI and component, I and even my wife (who usually does not care about signal quality and cannot tell the difference) could tell the quality of the picture was better using the HDMI.

Specifically, the color depth, the clarity, the contrast, the sharpness (the components greatest difference to me was the fuzziness and the dullness of the picture and the color) all were better on HDMI.

This is just my opinion on the difference but like I said, for me it was and is very easy to tell.

The same goes for Blu-ray vs. up-scaled...absolutely NO contest....up-converting a 480p DVD pales in comparison to Blu-ray at 720p 1080i or 1080p with uncompressed audio. Anyone who says otherwise does not have a clue.

tootles

So, the Transfer Kit doesn't use the original Xbox 360 right? I only need the elite, 120gb harddrive, 20gb harddrive, and the Transfer Kit?

Why bother upgrading to the Elite now? In another 3 years the Xbox 720 will be out, and meanwhile the PS3 will be at the half-way point of it's 10 year cycle.
If it makes it that far...

@ #30

"When the DVD drives spins up is sounds like a hovercraft has entered my room."

Just had to quote that since it made me lol. Actually I still am.

"An $1100 TV is unreachable for many people.

Hell, my car payment, rent, cable, internet, electric and cell phone together are less than the cost of the "affordable" TV you linked to."

See that point? Way up there? Apparently not, it went over your head. Fine, we'll take an exact example....

When I bought my LCD TV, it was $800, which is NOT affordable to many people. It's a 30" HDTV supporting SD, 480i, 480p, 720i, 720p, 1080i, 1080p. A comparable TV, nowadays, is about $500. Now, about a 30" Generic TV (as in Wal-mart shit, Apex, or Westinghouse) $200-$300 for a standard def set, CRT of course. Or you can look at the Panasonics and Sonys and see price ranges around $400-$500. I only brought up that TV because, well, it's pretty fucking cheap for the size it is, the features it has, and the fact that it supports up to 1080i. Technologically comparable sets from 10 years ago would have been nearly double that.

See my point? I lowered it for you. HDTV is becoming more and more affordable. Hell, in my opinion, it's already there.

I would spend an extra $20 for the PS3 before I bought another 360. The Elite is too damn expensive and so is the PS3. Not that I CAN'T afford either, I just DON'T want to pay $500+ for a game console.
I was barely able to justify paying $400 for my premium 360.

"See my point? I lowered it for you. HDTV is becoming more and more affordable. Hell, in my opinion, it's already there."

No shit that it's becoming "more" affordable - that's what happens to technology.

However, the baseline HDTV price is *still* unattainable for many people. The fact that you link to an $1100 TV as an example of a great value is exactly my point. The barrier for entry for HDTV is, at minimum, around $300. $300 for your average TV consumer, the person who watches basic cable and DVDs, was annoyed when their cable provider forced digital cable on them and who doesn't know BluRay from a blue sno cone, is quite a bit of money for a 15-inch monitor.

Or did you miss that point in your rush to cover your own ass for linking to an $1100 expenditure as proof that HDTVs aren't still out of reach for many people? Smooth.

"1080p is 1080p no matter how your transmit it. If your tv accepts 1080p over componet then there is no difference."

That's not entirely true; the digital signal will have the slightest improvement in quality, but not as much as the videophiles make it out to be. I also believe there is a bandwidth issue...it's been a while since I've looked into all of that. Unfortunately, most TV's don't do 1080p over component anyway.

"when i switched my PS3 to HDMI there was a major difference in the lighting and sharpness on Motorstorm & Resistance."

Jack, I had the same results. The TV isn't the problem, which some others have suggested. The problem is the analog out of the PS3 is outright crap. Monster cables help a very tiny amount, but it's still not tolerable. The XMB font's glowing effect is aggravating to the eyes over component/analog, but through HDMI it's as sharp as can be. However, I don't have any type of problem like that with the Xbox 360.

I'm sure Sony didn't dump much effort into the analog out of the PS3, because they assumed we'd all go HDMI eventually anyway (and that's what they want for Blu-ray). They made it acceptable and moved on. Either that or they just kept the same setup as the PS2.

Microsoft was basing the 360 around analog out, which is why it performs so well with it. The jump to HDMI with the 360 won't be as noticeable because of that.

My real issue is that ever since I've got a 1080p-supporting television, I've not really noticed any major changes between 1080i and 1080p. The latter runs slightly smoother, but you have to be nitpicky to notice. And close to the TV...but who sits that close to 50"-60" TV's?

I was going to trade-up to an elite this Sunday, but after reading engadget's take on it, I can wait. I wouldn't mind having a Black 360, but then I'd need a black Wii to match. LOL

Earl, don't forget that the PS3 is no longer $500+ but straight up $600. Now compare that to the Wii's $250 and the 360's choices of $300, $400, $480 to the PS3's intro price of $600. oh yea, don't forget, no games included.

furthermore, my roommate picked up a Wii with 4 games (Wii Sports, Wii Play, Zelda, Prince of Persia) for $430 after tax :)

In regards to inexpensive HD sets.. I HIGHLY recommend the VIZIO 37" LCD from COSTCO/Sams Club which just got a $100 price reduction down to $799. Built in HD tuner,up to 1080i and TWO HDMI imputs. Check it: http://www.vizio.com/products/detail.aspx?pid=16

$1100 is NOT alot of money. C'mon, if you cannot swing that, move back 2 mommy's house. Find a store that does no interest for 1-2 years (best buy, circuit city to name a few) and pay the monthly payments and pay it off before the interest kicks in. so, you pay maybe 25-50 a month tops. just make sure to pay it completely off B4 the interest kicks in as ALL of the interest is backloaded if you do not.

I have 2 kids, both in daycare (now that is expensive 1100+ a month) 2 cars, a house, 50" HDTV, PS3, and I do not make that much money. So, quit your crying and go buy an HDTV.

$300, for an HDTV? WTF
$1100 or less is dirt cheap. (if you want expensive, have multiple children)

Sorry, more likely you will pay around $100 to pay it off in time...still, not a big deal.

A brick-prone, loud as hell system that's painted black is still a brick-prone, loud as hell system. Hey Microsoft, why don't you focus on making your console actually work before you go adding black paint and HDMI ports. Just a thought.

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Xbox 360 Elite Q&A

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