We're on the verge of a new technological leap. Like VHS to DVD or,
I guess, every port to USB-C? We're about to make the leap from 1080p to 4K.
So far, consoles are a bit ahead of the rest of us. This is the Xbox One X.
It's incredibly powerful — the most powerful console yet. But is it worth it if you
don't have a 4K TV? Well, maybe. Let's break it down. In size that the
Xbox One X is similar to last year's Xbox One S. Sleek and simple and kind of stunning
when you think about how much hardware is crammed into it. When you pick it up
you'll get it. The X is 2 pounds heavier than the S, and a full pound heavier than
the PS4 Pro. It has air vents on the sides so even though you can stand it
upright, you might not want to. That being said we never noticed the fans getting
noisy even when the console was being put through its paces with some 4K HDR
Gears of War 4. Its power supply is internal so there are no chunky cords.
And it has a one terabyte hard drive like the PS4 Pro. You can add more space
to your Xbox One X by plugging in an external hard drive. You might want that
external hard drive because it is one of the easiest ways to transfer data from
your old Xbox to your new one. If there's an Xbox One X enhanced version of a game
with 4K assets, the Xbox One X will download those assets. Unlike on the Xbox One S, you don't get a
choice. Even if you don't have a 4K TV these enhanced games are still rendered
at a higher resolution. They'll just look better. This is called supersampling, and
at launch Microsoft says that around 70 existing Xbox One games will support it.
The downside for everyone is install size and download time. These files are
big and there's no way around it. That means that we've reached a point where
even 1TB of space is starting to feel a little bit small. Gears of War 4
is a massive 103 gigabytes. Halo 5 is 107. The Xbox One X gives users options that
PC players have had for a while, but what you get depends on the
game. We tried Gears of War 4 in visuals mode
which runs the game at 4K in HDR and it looks fantastic.
There's also a performance option which keeps the visuals at 1080 and targets
60FPS. It's similarly stunning. Halo 5 on the
Xbox One X targets 60FPS and supports 4K, but not HDR. Of course it still looks
amazing but the point is that for these already-released games you shouldn't
expect a universal 4K HDR 60FPS experience. Is that bad?
No way. We tried Halo 3, and this enhanced version doesn't even look like a game
that came out in 2007 anymore. The color palette isn't quite HDR but it
is striking nonetheless. Even for non-enhanced Xbox One games you can expect
significantly shorter load times and a smoother framerate. This is not going to
be a mainstream console. It cost $499 and you do need a 4K HDR TV to get the most
out of it. But it offers better image quality and performance than the PS4 Pro.
And if you're enjoying the Xbox ecosystem of backward compatible games
and Xbox Play Anywhere, then maybe this is the console for you. There's still a
lot of testing to be done with the enhanced games that Microsoft is
offering. Only you can decide if the cost is worth it. But we can tell you it looks
and plays great