Hitting The Spot

With Xbox One X, Microsoft turns the runt of the litter into the runaway leader of the pack.

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We just can’t get over how small it is. This is, as you might have heard since Microsoft’s been bellowing it from the rooftops for the best part of 18 months, the most powerful console ever made. Yet it is also the smallest system Microsoft has ever designed, representing a sea change in thinking from a company which has always wanted its hardware to stand out. The original Xbox was a beast; the 360, with its ostentatious curves, impossible to ignore. While sleeker than its predecessors, the launch Xbox One was designed to be noticed, reflecting its maker’s desire to have it power your entire home-entertainment setup. That mission failed, of course. And it’s been a long, rough road for the Xbox brand since. Yet it ends at Xbox One X, a console which, in many ways, feels impossible: for its power versus its size, for its lavish feature set, for its form factor. But most importantly, for the way it makes Xbox feel essential for the first time in half a decade.

There are caveats to that, inevitably. Most obviously, One X is only as good as the rest of your setup. While it offers benefits to those playing in 1080p – supersampling 4K assets to improve image quality, more stable framerates, a higher resolution for existing Xbox games that use a dynamic solution, and faster load times – the console is naturally at its best on a 4K, HDR-enabled panel. And it’s the latter that really matters. The leap from1080p to 4K is noticeable, certainly, but it is in no way comparable to the way the scales fell from your eyes when you hooked up your first HDTV. If it’s that level of purchase validating sensation you’re after, you’ll need the wide colour gamut and vivid, retina-searing brightness of HDR.