PS5 Disc Edition (Slim)
PS5 Digital Edition (Slim)
Officially, Sony are not selling this as the ‘PS5 Slim’. It’s simply the latest redesign of their PS5 console. However, it has had so much media attention as the ‘slim’ model that for the sake of easy of identification it will be refered to as the ‘slim’ model in this article also.
Size is everything
Now definitely one of the main selling points of the new PS5 Slim has to be it’s size. It is about an 1.5 inches shorter and 30% smaller overall than the original PS5! That’s going to make it alot easier to fit into your TV cabinet, or anywhere else that you’re likely to set it up. That’s a welcome upgrade because the PS5 when it was originally released, about 3 years ago, was a massive games console.
Whilst the new PS5 Slim is smaller when compared against the orginal PS5, it is still taller and deeper than an XBox Series X. So yes, it’s slim, but it’s not as small as you think.
The new Slim model also sees a reduction in weight that makes it 18% or 24% lighter than the original PS5, depending upon whether you buy the disc or the digital version of the console.
This leaves the PS5 Slim weighing only 3.2kg for the disc version or 2.6kg for the digital version. The XBox Series X in comparison is singnificantly heavier at 4.4kg.
So overall the PS5 is now smaller and lighter. Both are welcome changes to the PS5.
Time for a facelift
The PS5 Slim has also had a bit of a design change and a face lift. Gone are the two full height face plates from the original PS5. They’ve now been replaced with split face plates on either side. Not only that but there’s also a difference in the material too. The two bottom plates have a nice matt white finish to them whilst the top two plates are finished in what I’d describe as cheap shiny plastic. I don’t know why Sony didn’t keep the same material all the way through as I think it would have made the console feel more cohesive and premium.
I understand the design aesthetic though as the black lines going through the middle of the PS5 mirror a similar design that is already on the controllers. Whether that was intentional or not, who knows.
Replacement face plates are also availabe for the new PS5 if you wanted to completely change the color of it though, or even wanted to multi-tone it and have different colors top and bottom. A red and blue Spiderman look perhaps?
There are some other subtle design changes. The collar at the front of the console was quite prominent on the original PS5 but has been shrunk back on the PS5 Slim so it doesn’t stick out quite so much.
There’s also a slight design change on the back too. So whilst it has the same two USB-A ports, ethernet port, power supply port, and HDMI port as the original, the HDMI port has been moved further away from the power supply. This is no doubt in response to complaints of the power supply on the original PS5 causing interference with the HDMI cable signal. So it’s good to see Sony making some good design changes there.
The front sees a slight change in USB ports too. The original PlayStation 5 had a USB-A and USB-C Port, and the power and eject button right next to each other. The PS5 Slim however has gone all-in with USB-C. There are now two USB-C ports on the front. The power and eject buttons have also been seperated with the eject button next to the disc drive, and the power button remaining at the front. This is a welcome design change because I don’t know how many times I would keep forgetting which button did what on the original console and would keep accidently turning the PS5 off when I just wanted to eject a disc! and then you’d go and just turn your PS5 off.
Why Sony, Why?
Not all changes have been for the best though.
The original PS5 came with a stand that it to be positioned either vertically or horizontally. However, the new PS5 Slim no longer provides this. Instead you get two small matchstick stands that you have to slot into the black bar across the middle. If however you want to stand your console upright you now have to buy a vertical stand as a $30 extra add-on!
The disc drive has seen one of the biggest hardware design changes as it is now removable. So you could buy the PS5 digital version and then add the disc drive at a later date. You don’t have to buy it straight away. That also means that if the disc drive was ever to break that replacing it would be relatively inexpensive.
The PS5 Slim has been upgraded to 1TB of storage which is more than the 825GB on the original PS5. That now places the PS5 on parity with the XBox Series X. Given that games are getting larger in size every year, having more storage is a welcome upgrade. However, do bear in mind that you only have around 848GB of actual usable storage space so you’ll still likely need to upgrade the storage, either internally or externally, at some point in the future. I personally upgraded mine with a 2TB Corsair MP600 NVMe drive, and installing it was easy enough to do.
The controllers remain unchanged compared to the original PS5, but honestly, if it ain’t broke why fix it? It’s a good controller that really saw little need for change. It’s one of the best controllers out there. It’s inbuilt rechargeable battery means you’re not junting around for some AA’s in the middle of a game, and the force feedback adds a level of immersion to games. Even the speaker that’s built into the controller adds a further level of immersion into games with additional sound effects, such as the sound of the ball hitting the net in FIFA (sorry, EA FC!).
Same body, different dress
Other than that, hardware wise, the PS5 Slim is the same same as the original. It still has the same AMD Ryzen Zen 2 CPU, GPU and 16GB of RAM.
It’s also still the same playstation home screen when you log in and so there’s no difference there either. In all the ways that matter on this console, it behaves the same as the original PS5, it’s just a bit more svelte.
I need games
Now whilst you can buy games individually, which can costs hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, you can also check out Playstation Plus. This is Sony’s gaming subscription service that gives you access to hundreds of games, both old and new, for up to $160 a year. They have different subscription tiers so it can be cheaper than that too.
Now I do think it lags behind XBox Game Pass in the volume and quality of the content and games you get for the price. But, if you’ve got a PS5 and are just starting out, it’s a great way to get access to hundreds of games for not much money.
Price
Fortunately the new PS5 Slim Disc Edition is the same price as the original PS5 and costs $499. However, if you’d rather buy the digital version, well Sony have increased the price of it by $50. So the digital one now costs $449. That makes it only $50 cheaper than the disc version of the console. That’s not much of a price gap anymore, especially when you consider adding a disc drive later will cost you an extra $80! It makes you question who is actually going to bother buying the digital edition!
Also don’t forget that if you want to stand your PS5 vertically then you are going to have to spend an extra $30 getting that ver stand I talked about earlier. If you do want to get that, you don’t get it with the PS5 Slim out of the box, that’s an extra $30. You’ll have to go spend as well. But again, like I said, I don’t think you need to.
Should you buy it?
So considering all of that, should you get the PlayStation 5 Slim?
Well I think that if you’ve already got the original PlayStation 5 then I really don’t see much of a reason as to why you would unless you absolutely wanted the smallest PS5 that you could get and you wanted that little bit of extra storage. However, for the money, I would actually say if you just want more storage just go out and buy a bigger larger NVMe drive and just go and upgrade your original PS5 that way.
If you’re looking at buying a PlayStation 5 then should you get the PS5 Slim? Well, I would say yes because it’s the same price as the original but you get slightly more storage in a slightly more compact package.
Unless you can get the original PS5 for a significantly cheaper price as shops try and get rid of older stock, then that actually might be worth a look as well.
