Review: Sony PlayStation 4
Our first impressions - Controller - PS interface - Power consumption - Blu-ray & TV apps - Gaming - Conclusion - Debate
Seven years have passed since the PlayStation 3 came out. That is a long time in this industry. Think about it, so much has happened in the meantime, but the PlayStation 3 has remained relevant for the entire period. Still, the PlayStation 4 has been awaited with great anticipation, and it has finally arrived! Sony has made some radical changes to the PlayStation 4, which means that it is now built on a PC hardware platform instead of the Cell processor in the PS3. This change means that it will not play PS3 games - but sometimes you have to start fresh to prepare for the future. Sony believes that the PS4 is the future. It is first and foremost a gaming console with 10 times the graphics power compared to PS3, but it is also a platform for TV apps.
What we see now is just the beginning, the first step in Sony’s PlayStation 4 adventure. The first step is always the most important, so has Sony created something worthwhile? Is the PlayStation 4 a worthy successor? Join us to find out.
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UK retailerOur first impressions
The PlayStation 1 was light grey, as times dictated, but ever since the PlayStation has been black. The PlayStation 4 is also black, combining the matte black look of the PlayStation 2 with the glossy piano black look of the PlayStation 3.
The PlayStation 4 is smaller than we had expected. It is actually slimmer than the PS3 Super Slim, although a bit longer. It weighs just a bit more than the PS3 Super Slim, which is impressive for a first-generation model. We will surely see future revisions of the PlayStation 4, but even now it is fairly discrete for such as powerful machine.
The PS4 has a very streamlined appearance with sharp edges and lines. The two-part design is playful and in between there is a super thin light bar that lights up in different colors, depending on the state of the machine. When booting up it is blue, when on it is white and when in stand-by and charging the controller emits a warm orange tone. It is a nice little detail. Two USB ports are available on the front, and on the back we found the Ethernet port, the power plug, 1 HDMI port, optical audio out, and a port for the PlayStation camera. The power supply is built in, which is great! It has two very, very small buttons on the front; one power on/off button and a disc eject button.
But let us be honest here. The PlayStation 4 is still just a black plastic box. Sony has paid attention to the details, which we certainly appreciate, but mostly from a practical viewpoint. The box is not very attractive and looks anything but exclusive. The plastic appearance begs you to hide it from plain sight in your living room. After all, that is where game consoles are most often placed. Luckily, it can lie flat and stand up. Sony recommends a stand for added stability, but it can easily stand on its own as long as you just make sure that it is not placed in an exposed position. So it is easy to hide behind a TV or in furniture.
The PlayStation 4 is relatively quiet in the menus, but in games it tends to warm up a bit and increase fan rotation. The fans are audible during quiet dialogue, but for the most part we never noticed it. At times our PS4 seemed a bit noisier when standing up instead of lying down flat. The Blu-ray drive spins faster than in the PS3, and therefore makes a bit more noise. The Blu-ray drive is audible when a disc spins up, but when the Blu-ray movie was running we never noticed it. PS4 is not 100 % quiet, but quiet enough to make us satisfied.
And let us just quickly run through the hardware inside before moving on to the controller. PlayStation 4 has 8 AMD Jaguar CPU and a Radeon graphic card. It is based on x86 architecture, just like PCs, which should make it much easier for developers to develop games. That is also why it cannot play PS3 games. It has 8GB of superfast GDDR5 ram. It has a built-in 500 GB hard drive, but only a bit more than 400 GB is available. You can replace the HHD to one with more capacity (even to a faster one). The Blu-ray drive is faster, which means that it can also install games quicker. It is an incredibly powerful machine, and Sony says that the GPU can move 1.84 teraflops, but due to Sony’s optimization it should match a PC with around 2 x 1.84 teraflops, or around 3.5 teraflops. Sony says that it should be able to run games natively at 1080p @ 60fps – finally! It has been said to be 10 times faster than current-gen consoles, but it is not an official statement from Sony.
One thing we want to comment on is the WiFi antenna. It is based on the N WiFi standard, which is disappointing, as we had expected it to also support the faster ac WiFi standard that is rolling out now. Also, it only supports the 2.4 GHz frequency band, and not the 5 GHz frequency band, which is very disappointing as most of us knows that the 2.4 GHz band is very crowded in most areas and even most homes (due to other non-tech devices).
Before the 1.51 software update we had major WiFi problems. The PlayStation 4 was simply unable to get a reliable WiFi signal in my bedroom (5-6 meters from the router, with a closed wooden door). Luckily, the 1.51 patch seems to have fixed our problems. Before the 1.51 update the WiFi dropped to 17% and the PS4 could not connect to the PS Store and streaming services, even though all our other devices in the room has no problems connecting. After the update it drops to 40% in the bedroom (85% in the next room 2-3 meters from the router), but it can now access the PS Store and streaming services without issues.The controller
Just like a touch screen is the connection between man and machine on a smartphone or tablet, the controller is the interface that connects us to the games we play. It is a very important element of a game console. Microsoft is believed to have spent $100 million during development of the controller for Xbox One. There is no such estimate for Sony, but it gives us an idea of how much effort is put into these small things.
And let us just spill it; the PS4 controller is amazing! We love it. It takes the best elements of the PS3 controller and improves upon them, while also introducing new elements. It is now larger and the handles are a bit different and longer. The buttons are in the same positions, but it still feels like a major improvement.
I must say that I actually liked the PS3 controller, unlike many others. I probably have slightly below average hands for a man, so it was okay for me. But still, the PS4 controller is just so much better. The checkered pattern on the handles and backside provides an excellent grip and the mushroom buttons, too. The raised edges of the mushroom sticks ensure that you thumbs will never slip again. The controller lies very comfortable in your hands. The only thing I do not like is the position of the R1 and L1 buttons. I guess I would have liked them to be a bit further back, but maybe it just takes some time getting used to.
The controller also incorporates some new elements. The rumble motors are now more versatile and accurate. In the center there is a touch pad that game developers can utilize. In Warframe it can be used to launch your special attack, in Assassin’s Creed it can be used to pull up the map and so on. We guess that we will have to see more games to understand the potential.
A really cool feature is the new small speaker in the center. Per default it is used for voices in online multi-player games, but game developers can also use it in the single-player mode. In some FPS games it is used when commands are spoken to your or when communicating with your environment. It is a pretty cool effect, as voices sound very direct when coming from a speaker so close to you. Resogun has a very good implementation, where warnings are transmitted to you through the controller speaker when humans are being attacked.
At the bottom of the PS4 controller there are two ports, one for a headset. A mono (one speaker) headset is bundled with the PlayStation 4 and it also has a small microphone. It can obviously be used as a chat headset, and the speaker on the controller automatically switches off when the headset is connected. But you can also stream all game sounds to the headset, making the TV completely quiet. It works flawlessly, without delay or noticeable audio degradation (depending on the quality of your headset, naturally). We imagine that some users will find this very handy when playing games at home on the living room TV – maybe even in the bedroom. You can also join parties for voice chats in games, in order to avoid hearing and talking to everyone.The PS4 controller is amazing, truly great, but there is just one problem. Battery lifeThe select button on the PS3 controller has been replaced with a new Share button on the PS4 controller. The Share button lets you share your game moments with friends – or foes. When pressed you can share a video or a photo on social media (you have to opt in first), but you can also livestream your gameplay through Twitch.tv or Ustream. You just need a user.
The PS4 automatically saves the last 15 minutes of gameplay, so if you want to share something cool that happened a few minutes ago, you can do that. We experienced some issues when trying to jump into other gamers’ livestreams, but we guess that is just early day server issues. We are confident that these issues will be resolved quickly.
Lastly, there is the light bar. So, yeah, it is there and it lights up. Some games use it to indicate health, going from green to red with intermediate steps. When charging your controller through the PS4 it glows orange. We did not have the PlayStation Camera, but we understand that the camera can also detect the light and let you move around a map in for example Assassin’s Creed by moving the controller around in the air. We guess it has some potential, but during our time with PlayStation 4 we felt it was a bit gimmicky.
The PS4 controller charges through the mini USB port on top. It means that you can charge it through a PC or with a phone charger, but naturally also from the PS4 console. And it can charge even when the PS4 is in stand-by! (!).
The PS4 controller is amazing, truly great, but there is just one problem. Battery life. We found that it has juice to run for a little more than 10 hours of mixed use, 50 % gaming, some movies watching and some menu hopping. It was never turned off during this period, but you can make it automatically go to sleep after some time with the menu settings. 10 hours is not horrible, it is close to full day of gaming, but we would have liked more – especially because the PS3 controller did much better in this regard. If you go all-in on gaming it dies after 7-8 hours.Power consumption
 | |
| Powered off | 0.3 W |
| Standby | 7 W |
| Standby (downloading/installing) | 72 W |
| Normal (Blu-ray & TV apps) | 90-95 W |
| Gaming | 110-130 W |
The PlayStation 4 has a stand-by mode and a fully powered off mode. The stand-by mode can automatically install system and game updates. When the PS4 is downloading or installing new updates or games power consumption jumps to 72 W. When it is idle power consumption goes to 7W, which is still fairly high for stand-by.
The PlayStation user interface
When we powered the PlayStation 4 on for the first time we were asked to quickly run through some setup steps. It takes only a few minutes where you have to select your language, log into your PSN account and so on. It is easy if you can remember your PSN password – we couldn’t. You are asked to install the launch-day update. Without it the box is pretty much a brick. For us it installed very, very fast. We guess it started downloading in the background as soon as we connected to our WiFi network during setup, and continued while we tried to reset our password for PSN. It was ready to install almost instantly.The PS4 user interface looks different than on the PS3. It starts up with a few relaxing tones and goes to some spacey, relaxing ambient tones afterwards. Sony no longer calls it Xross, but it is still based on a horizontal line of elements that you can scroll through, layered on top of a deep blue background. Pretty much everything you can do from the beginning, even browse the web, requires you to log into PSN.
You can use your existing ID or create a new one, and decide to show your real name to your best friends. Your user is now linked to the controller (and other users to other controllers). You can obviously change that, but it is a cool detail. You can also log in at friend’s houses. You are automatically logged out when you leave.
We dived into the deep blue and quickly got familiar with the navigation. It is fairly logical. You have two rows, the top one has all the settings menus (and the PSN store), and the main one comprises all your games, TV apps and services. The more you install the longer the horizontal menu gets. Scroll to one of your games and you can press down for more information, game trailers, friends’ activity, livestreaming and addons/DLC. When you scroll down and dive deeper into the games, for example while installing, the screen background changes to a game-specific theme.
There is a TV & Video item on the horizontal menu. Navigate here and your TV apps, such as Netflix, Amazon Instant, and Hulu Plus show up below. You need to install them before use. Sony has made front row reservations for their own Music Unlimited and Video Unlimited services. These are not located inside the TV & Video section, but are shown as separate items on the navigation bar. That is fine and we can understand that Sony wants to highlight its own services, but we wish we could pull up other TV apps, too. We really wanted for example Netflix up there on the main menu line. And we would also prefer if we could hide Sony’s Unlimited services in the TV & Video menu. More on the media features later.
Oddly, the PlayStation Store is placed in the upper menu with all the settings. This is not logical. When inside the PlayStation Store, you can browse through games, movie, TV shows and apps. The games section can be divided into different categories. The Store looks fairly similar to the PS3 store after the latest updates. We quickly joined the PS Plus – that is also required for online play – and downloaded Resogun, Contrast, and Warframe for free. Sony has continuously said that gamers will be able to start games shortly after starting the download process. However, this was not possible for us. After about 5 minutes into the download process PS4 notified us that the game was ready to install, but it was not possible to start the game before it had downloaded to 100 %.
The same was true for Assassin’s Creed. However, the games appear to install in the background. After the download process reached 100 % we could jump into the game immediately. When inside we noticed that the single-player campaign had been installed, but the multi-player part was still installing. We did not have any games on discs (but should receive some soon), but we are told that it works with discs. After about 5 minutes you can start you game. We guess that Sony still needs to adjust some things here and there. Our problems might have been related to Sony’s launch weekend PSN issues. All games need to be installed on the hard drive, but you can easily replace it if you run out of space. There is an option to upload all your saved game data to PSN if you do that. Afterwards you can download the save game data again.
We will elaborate on the gaming experience later. Let us first return to the PS4 user interface. We installed 7 games during our first week, which is not much, but we can imagine that the horizontal menu will quickly get crowded. There is no way to sort items in the menu and no way to categorize them either. The recently-used games or apps jump to the left in the menu, which is fine when you only have a few games, but confusing when you add more. Things are never in the same place.
While we generally like the user interface for its familiarity we also feel that Sony played it a bit to safe here. It looks and feels a lot like the PS3 user interface, however faster and smoother. That is not a bad thing, but with some of the new things that Sony has implemented it can start to feel a bit confusing at times. One example is the way Sony has implemented notifications. Notifications often show up in the upper right corner, but there is just no way to interact with them. Say your friend starts a multi-player game and a notification pops up. There is no way to click on the notification and join his game. You have to find him/her in your list and then join. And if friends send you messages, you have to jump to the home screen and to messages to read the message.
At one point our PS4 restarted (it did not crash). When it returned it gave us a very quick notification about why it had restarted, but that notification was quickly replaced by another notification about a game. The notification about why it had restarted was nowhere to be found in any of our inboxes (yes there are many, and it is confusing). The real problem is that notifications are not clickable or interactable. Sony treats notifications a bit like an email inbox, which is not optimal. At times it feels like Sony has been too focused on reprogramming the PS4 interface to work with new hardware architecture and making it look like the PS3 instead of rethinking it based all the new features. Sony’s user interface paradigm remains unchanged. Granted, some things work very well, and are generally happy with what we see – but it could have been much better. At least we know Sony will be working on it for many years to come to fix the shortcomings, and that gives us some comfort.
Lastly, we want to touch on the multitasking feature. PS4 lets you jump out of any game to the main menu at any time. The game continues to run and you can jump into it again and start playing immediately. Multitasking on PS4 is much faster and smoother than on the PS3, but it is still not possible to run two games simultaneously. If you try to start up a new game the PS4 will ask you to quit the one already running. However, it is possible to start using for example Netflix while playing a game. The PS4 will ask you to suspend the game when opening the TV app, which just means that the game pauses. That was not possible on the PS3, so we welcome this change. Our PS4 never crashed once during our week of testing. It was rock solid.
It takes 25 seconds to turn on the PlayStation 4, regardless whether it is completely turned off or in stand-by. Unlike the PlayStation 3, the logos appear very quickly when PlayStation 4 turns on, but if you scroll very fast to the right you will still experience some icon loading, just not as much as on the PlayStation 3.
Blu-ray, TV apps & media
Just like the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 4 comes equipped with a Blu-ray drive that can also read DVD and CDs (Sony’s original plan was to exclude CDs, but it will be added soon). The Blu-ray drive is faster, which means that it lets you install games quicker, but it also means that is noisier in use.When inserting a Blu-ray movie the drive is very audible when it spins up and loads the Blu-ray menu, but during playback it is fairly quiet. It did not bother us. It takes 13 seconds to register the Blu-ray disc and create an icon in the PS user interface. When clicked it takes approximately 30-40 seconds to reach the trailer and warning screens of the Blu-ray, so approximately 1 minute to start a Blu-ray movie. This is not bad, but not impressive either. To be fair this is not the PlayStation 4’s fault, it cannot fix the inherent issues of the disc format.
You can press the options button on the controller to access the options menu. From here there is also access to the same menu that is used on PlayStation 3. You can fast-forward, skips chapters, select subtitles and so on. Also notice that if you want to switch between bit stream and PCM audio, you have to do it while playing the Blu-ray disc. This option is not accessible from the settings menu out on the PS4 front page. Besides that things are pretty straightforward here.
But there are issues, too. First off, PlayStation 4 does not support 3D Blu-rays at launch. Sony says it will be added in a later update. And while the PlayStation games are not region locked, Blu-ray movie playback in PlayStation 4 is! There is no way to play your imported movies. Several of our Blu-ray movies would not run.
No DLNA streaming, no USB support, no mp3 playback, and no 3D Blu-ray. The PlayStation 4 is severely crippled at launch.
PS4 supports the HD audio formats, including DTS HD MA 7.1, and correctly handles the 1080p24 Blu-ray format. However, you cannot use multi-tasking while playing Blu-rays. It is clear that the Blu-ray player is a completely separate system in the PlayStation 4. It is probably just a Blu-ray player physically built into the box that has no link to the actual PS4.
All in all, the PS4 is merely a standard Blu-ray player. Support for 3D will be added later, but there is no word from Sony regarding the future roadmap. Will it play 4K Blu-rays in the future? Time will tell.
There is no YouTube app at launch
At one point, before the PlayStation 4 launched, Sony said that the goal for PlayStation 4 was to support the same media features as the PlayStation 3. We guess goals change. Sony has promised to add DLNA and mp3 support in a later update, and while understand that the PlayStation 4 has been redesigned from ground up, we still think this is a major omission.
So let us instead take a look at the media features that are available now. As said in the previous section, PlayStation 4 supports TV apps. None of them require the PS Plus subscription (which is an advantage over Xbox One). The following are available at launch.
Local apps will also become available, depending on where you live.
As discussed earlier, Sony’s two Unlimited services are highlighted in the main menu, while the other apps are hidden in a menu. There is no way to pull the other apps to the front, which is a shame. We hope Sony will allow us to do that soon. We did not experiment with every single TV app, but took a look at Netflix and the two Unlimited apps.
Netflix on PlayStation 4 has Netflix’s new user interface, which is a major improvement over PlayStation 3. Netflix feels like a completely new experience. On the PlayStation 3 it was slow, crammed together and not very visual. Now it is very visual, extremely smooth and just very appealing to the eye. It supports profiles, the Super HD layer, and obviously search. It is still a bit tiring to input text with the controller, but at least now Netflix automatically finds matching titles after you input just one letter, and it continues to adapt as you write.
You can also use the PlayStation App for Android and iOS, but right now the keyboard is hidden well – it does not show up automatically. You can press the options button on the controller to show the bitrate menu, just like on the PlayStation 3. One thing that is worth pointing out here is that PS4 requires 90W to run streaming services. That is quite a lot compared to for example the Apple TV that consumes less than 1W.
The two Unlimited apps have not changed markedly compared to PlayStation 3. Music Unlimited requires a monthly subscription and Video Unlimited lets you rent single movies. There is no subscription option for Video Unlimited.
Sony has promised to bring 4K video support and a 4K movie service to the PlayStation 4, but add that to the list of missing features right now. Sony has clarified that PlayStation 4 will do 4K for video, but not for games, which is probably a wise choice based on the hardware inside. There is no word from Sony regarding 4K at 60 frames per second. The PlayStation 4 is currently equipped with HDMI 1.4, but it would need HDMI 2.0 to output 4K@60Hz. Sony will software update its 4K TVs with HDMI 2.0, so it is entirely possible that they will do the same for PlayStation 4. After all, Sony’s 4K TVs started selling in May/June 2013 and were manufactured even before that.
All in all, PS4’s media functionality is severely lacking. Sony needs to acknowledge that a lot of people are using their PlayStation 3 as a media player, and we think it is a bad decision to leave out some of essential features at launch. The fact that PS3 is the most widely used Netflix player in the world should really speak for itself. People want media features, and the missing features cannot come soon enough.
Gaming
Sony has repeatedly said that PlayStation 4 is first and foremost a gaming console, maybe to hide the fact that the media implementation is simply not finished. Nevertheless, we want to start out by praising Sony here. Let us jump straight to one of the games we spent most time with: Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag.
Most of you probably know Assassin’s Creed in some form. This is the fourth major installment, and this time we are in the Caribbean together with pirates. The game is not a PS4 exclusive, not even a next-gen exclusive, it also exist on the old-generation consoles, but on PS4 it shows just how powerful the PS4 is. The game looks absolutely stunning at times, and especially out on the open water some sequences are breathtakingly beautiful with almost infinite draw distances. Having been to the Caribbean it felt almost surreal to see how precisely the green and blue water resembles the real world. Assassin’s Creed runs at native 1080p resolution (after a software update), but unfortunately not at 60 fps. It seems to be locked at somewhere around 30 fps, which shows at times. We hope that we some further optimization, game developers can go to real 1080p60, but that is really our only technical complaint about Assassin’s Creed. The game is worth the money. It is highly recommendable.
PlayStation 4 requires PS Plus to play multiplayer games online; a change from the PlayStation 3. PS Plus will set you back 50 US dollars per year, but then you will also get discounts and sometimes even free games (rarely AAA titles). We downloaded Contrast, Warframe, DC Universe Online, Blacklight: Retribution, and Resogun for free with PS Plus. Contrast takes place in a world where the main character can jump between the real world and the shadow world. Graphics are good and the atmosphere is authentic, but the game is not very good; bad controls and just generally boring.
We also spent some time with Knack and pre-release time with Drive Club. Knack is a fun game, probably most fun for kids, but it has some of the elements that made Crash Bandicoot popular. It is okay, but not extraordinarily. Drive Club felt unfinished and honestly felt as a racing game that could easily have been released on the PlayStation 3. It is a good thing it was delayed, we guess.
Warframe is a classic first-person-shooter that takes you around the universe to different planets. You play with other players over the internet, and have to complete objectives, while shooting robots. It is an average shooter, but you might want to give it a try. Resogun is like Space Invaders, only horizontally instead of vertically. It is a fun mini-game with nice graphics and a lot happening on-screen. We have yet to try the other titles, and other AAA titles, but should receive Killzone very soon. We will include some impressions later.
We would characterize our time with the PS4 games as a first impression, except for Assassin’s Creed that we have spent many hours with. The game catalogue is not impressive at the moment and we would have preferred more choice, but we are confident that game studios are working very hard. New Uncharted 4 and Gran Turismo 7 games should be coming out at some point. Very exciting.
The new controller works well. As said in a previous section, it is a great controller. The new touch pad is used for different things in different games. In Warframe it is used to fire your special attack. In Assassin’s Creed it is used to open the – extremely huge – world map and to navigate the map. It is a good implementation and it sits in a very natural position for both thumbs.
Unfortunately, we did not have the PS Vita to try out PS4’s remote play features.
And we should probably also make it clear that the PlayStation 4 does not play PlayStation 3 games. You need to keep your PlayStation 3 console for that. Sony says that at some point in the future they will open a Gaikai-based game streaming service that will actually allow you to stream PS3 games to the PS4 from Sony’s servers. Sony acquired Gaikai recently, but streaming technology for gaming is still a new thing so there are some concerns about reliability and game lag.
However, Sony has yet to share details on how it works and how much it will cost. It will be very disappointing if Sony wants us to cough up extra money for PS3 games that we have already bought, but we do not think this scenario should be ruled out. The PS Plus subscription probably has a role to play here.
Looking at the game aspect of PlayStation 4, the only concern we have is that games will stay pretty much the same on PlayStation 4. The PlayStation 4 does nothing to redefine games right now. The controller is largely identical, so the interface between you and the game is unchanged. Sony is not really focusing on the PS Eye camera for games, but we hear that Sony is working on a virtual reality headset and we hope they will also include support for the Oculus Rift. Such peripherals could open new possibilities for games, and we are sure that more things will come out.
The question is how Sony will adapt, and only time will tell. We think they have some interesting things planned, and as always the new PlayStation will stay around for many years to come. We are excited!
Conclusion
There is so much potential that we feel confident that the PlayStation 4 will be a success
As we said in the beginning, seven years have passed since the PlayStation 3 came out. It will probably stay around for a few more years, but PlayStation 4 is here to take over. All eyes are now on Sony’s new console and Microsoft’s new Xbox One. We have witnessed how the PS3 and Xbox 360 have changed drastically over the years. New features have been introduced, TV apps have arrived, and games have become much better over the years. We know that the next-generation of consoles will also evolve over the years, this is just the beginning, and so we can also forgive Sony the shortcomings of the PlayStation 4.Because it has shortcomings. There is no DLNA, MP3, CD, 3D Blu-ray, 4K video, and PS3 game support. We had expected more to be available at launch. Sony’s user interface is good, but not excellent. “Too few games!”, gamers complain. Sony surely has a busy year ahead. Despite those shortcomings, the PlayStation 4 shows tremendous potential. Assassin’s Creed shows just amazing graphics the PS4 can deliver. And this is one of the first games; just wait until developers have tamed this beast. The DualShock 4 controller is amazing, nothing less. There is so much potential that we feel confident that the PlayStation 4 will be a success.
Potential is good, but we also have to be realists here. Sony has to fix the issues, add back the features they took from us, and encourage game developers to work even harder, because the PS4 certainly needs a more interesting game catalog. The PlayStation 4 is a new beginning, but right now it is not a must-buy, unless you are a really dedicated gamer. We expect that to change in six to twelve months’ time.
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Apps is an evaluation of the app catalogue and the quality / user friendliness of the apps
Features is an evaluation of the built-in functionality and how useful it is, as well as build quality
User experience is an evaluation of user friendliness and the general use of the box, including the remote control
Total score weighted as: 40% Apps, 30% Features, 30% User experience.
All scores are calculated based on a moving maximum target, defined by what we currently consider the best on market. It is then presented as a percentage. This means that a score will fall over time as new and better media boxes set new standards. This allows you to compare scores across years. A score of 100% in a given category means that it is consider the best available media box in this category to date.
Features is an evaluation of the built-in functionality and how useful it is, as well as build quality
User experience is an evaluation of user friendliness and the general use of the box, including the remote control
Total score weighted as: 40% Apps, 30% Features, 30% User experience.
All scores are calculated based on a moving maximum target, defined by what we currently consider the best on market. It is then presented as a percentage. This means that a score will fall over time as new and better media boxes set new standards. This allows you to compare scores across years. A score of 100% in a given category means that it is consider the best available media box in this category to date.
Powerful hardware
Great controller
Nice graphics and physics in games
Multitasking
TV apps
Price
Media player missing
Power consumption
Few good games
User interface logic
