Well,
it arrived, after waiting the 5 days it takes
for it to come from Hong Kong the PS3 was finally
on my desk, like an excited school kid all I wanted
to do was get home and try it out. The pack we
purchased was the 60 GB version and we made sure
that it supported 240v.
After
unpacking the unit the first thing that really
surprised me was the weight, coming in at about
11lb’s it makes for the heaviest console
I have ever dealt with. From the pictures that
have been about for the last six months my impressions
of the PS3 have always been that it looked “plasticy”,
however out of the box it is clear that the machine
does look better in the flesh, that said even
after short periods of use it was literally covered
in fingerprints, so a good quality polishing cloth
close at hand is a must! I feel they could have
done a little more with the exterior as the plastic
chrome effect trim just degrades the overall aesthetic
appeal. That’s not really what we are all
worried about though, “Does it deliver
a good high definition gaming experience?”
is the question at hand.
Looking
to the rear of the Playstation 3 we find the normal
3 pin power connector and the Fibre optic audio
connector that we saw on the PS2, they have also
stuck with same audio and video custom connector
that was on previous models. Wireless internet
connectivity is built into the 60GB version, however
the 20GB version only has bluetooth for the wireless
controller.
Ethernet
is now standard as online content and gaming is
a facet that Sony hope to push hard. New to the
PS3 is the HDMI connector for connecting to HD
ready Televisions and Projectors.
A
little disappointing was the fact there was no
way of connecting component video out of the
box, but after perusing the manual these
leads can be purchased as an optional extra. With
the wallet busting initial cost Sony really should
gone the extra yard and included a component cable
in the box, as many TV’s and projectors
can not handle a HDMI signal.
The
PS3 also now has 4 USB connectors on the front
so that you can plug the controllers in to charge
but also use multi tap devices such as the buzz
controllers which worked on the PS2.
On
the left..... (or the bottom if mounted vertically)
is a plastic flap covering a selection of memory
card sockets, clearly because it is a Sony product
there is a slot for a Sony pro duo memory stick,
however thankfully it handles other media such
as Compact Flash and SD.
As
mentioned above, Sony have stuck with their custom
cabling for connecting composite video and stereo
audio, this also has the ability to take a new
cable that offers component video, however only
the standard video and audio cable are supplied.
A 3 pin fused power connector and the USB cable
for charging your controllers are also in the
box.
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Finally,
the days of handing over the PS2 controller to
your friend during an all night gaming fest while
you watch the console slide ever nearer to the
edge of your table is over! Sony have finally
introduced some smart new wireless controllers,
not changing the existing design of the shape
of the pads was a wise move by Sony. 4 LED’s
on the top show which port the pad is assigned
to and to charge the pad it simply plugs into
PS3 via USB, onscreen display shows how much power
is available. Even though the new pad now contains
a battery (which is not removable) there seems
to be no real additional weight. The controllers
can be used whilst USB charging, however you better
make sure you are set right next to the PS3 as
the lead supplied is only about 0.5 meters long.
There
have been some horror stories of the wireless
pads losing their connection with the console
in the middle of a gaming session however during
our extensive testing we did not encounter this
specific problem.
CPU
Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
*
1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS
GPU
RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p)
Multi-way programmable parallel floating
point shader pipelines
Sound
Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell- base
processing)
Memory
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz 256MB GDDR3 VRAM
@700MHz
System
Bandwidth
Main RAM 25.6GB/s
VRAM 22.4GB/s
RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
SB< 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)
System
Floating Point Performance
2 TFLOPS |
Storage
2.5" HDD either in 20GB or 60GB
I/O
USB Front x 4 (USB2.0)
Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1
SD standard/mini x 1
CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1
Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T)
Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)
Controller
Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB 2.0 (wired)
Wi-Fi (PSP)
Network (over IP)
AV Output
Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
HDMI: HDMI out
Analog: AV MULTI OUT
Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL
Disc
Media
CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM,
CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD
Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc
(audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)
DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation
3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW,
DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video,
BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE
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