Gadgetory

hey guys Ashley's got the hair then next-gen console wars are finally heating up with a launch of the ps4 we've been checking out the console since its release and now it's time for our review is the PlayStation 4 a smart Buy has Sony earned your money find out what we think and our ps4 review starting right now when I explain how I'm gonna do this review our gaming editor Joey Davidson also reviewed the ps4 in text form on our site TechnoBuffalo comm and a lot of his opinions echoed mine so I'll let you know when we different and why first let's talk about design at first glance Joey was not a fan of the ps4 his design when it was unveiled earlier this year I'm the other hand really liked the sharp edges and trapezoid inspired shape immediately the designs grown a bit on Joey though and he has his console sitting vertically in his entertainment center and mine lays horizontally we both did notice that Sony's design did a really good job of kind of hiding the USB ports on the front the one real bit of confusion at first was the power and eject buttons which are camouflage so well that a consumer might not realize where they are when they first set up their system on the inside the PlayStation 4 has a notable hard drive but notable kind of in a bad way because its capacity is a relatively small 500 gigabytes with most games needing 20 to 50 gigs of space you're looking at maxing out that hard drive really quickly if you buy new games all the time fortunately Sony's done all of us a favor and made it extremely easy to upgrade the hard drive including doing something kind of non Sony esque and allowing for non proprietary hardware to be installed so if you're even considering swapping our hard drive just bite the bullet and do it early before you start loading up your original Drive with content SSDs are also compatible which pleasantly speeds up load times Joey and I both agree it's great that Sony again built their power supply into the system meaning you won't be dealing with an ugly power brick yes I'm looking at you Xbox it doesn't change the gameplay or the overall experience of the console but an internal power supply is a really nice touch and it's one that's I think a little more forward-thinking the PlayStation 4 is also really quiet with little to no additional sound beyond the faint hum of the system and when you insert or eject a disk next up the controller I have both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 at home and over time I found myself preferring the Xbox 360 slims controller over the PlayStation 3 this time around I think I will have a much harder time choosing though because the DualShock 4 controller is a very very well designed it's a little heavier than the DualShock 3 but that adds some much-needed weight to the controller I think and they've also changed up the design of the triggers and bumpers making them way more ergonomic and easier to hit when you're in a jam or if you're panicked which I always appreciate the touchpad on the front controlled a drone in Killzone and I thought that was an interesting but not exactly amazing use of the touchpad so I guess we'll have to see how developers can make the touchpad more organic to use before we're 100% sold on it as for the controller speaker well considering I've been playing resogun almost non-stop since the ps4 dropped hearing keepers detected from my controller was extremely helpful we also really liked the headphone jack on the bottom of the controller which was a nice respite for my husband having a listen to me play Methodist in resogun over and over again did I mention I really live resogun I really love resogun unfortunately the one bummer of the DualShock 4 is the battery life both Joey and I got about 6 to 8 hours of play before needing it charged which isn't a super long time but should get you through a solid play session we also both wish the USB charging cable Sony included was about 2 feet longer but at least we can buy longer and cheaper replacements a Joey tends to spend about 10 hours a day during review sessions playing with the ps4 so he needed to charge his controller every single day I on the other hand spent about 2 to 3 hours a day at a time on the console so I was ok with charging it every other night moving on a connectivity you are definitely going to need a subscription to PlayStation Plus to get the most out of your ps4 that's about 50 bucks a year which is just shy of 1 less game for you every year and I know we don't like thinking about it that way but that's kind of trade-off and it's actually necessary because PlayStation Plus gives you access to online multiplayer beta access online saves auto system updates game discounts and my favorite thing the instant game collection so as long as you're a member of PlayStation Plus you get new games for free every month sometimes they are amazing like resogun and sometimes they're kind of awful like contrast but overall getting a couple of free games passed the time with is okay by me so for the both of us playstation plus equals worth it Joey covers the UI including social and sharing features pretty in-depth in his written review and I don't want to blab for 20 minutes about the PlayStation 4 so I'll just say that I think the sharing and social features are nicely done though I do wish I could sign in to my Google+ account instead of Facebook which I don't actually use sharing is also incredibly easy you have a share button right there on a controller with the ps4 doing the bulk of the recording streaming and screen capping for you I love that AHS for the UI I think it's okay though I miss dynamic themes a lot I miss making my own colors and I wish I had the ability to sort things better games categories friends blame that on my incessant organizational urges but there's nothing more frustrating than having to look through my entire friend list just for three or four of my regular favorites that I always play games with so what's the official word well the PlayStation 4 is a good console at launch but the really exciting part about the ps4 is its potential so think about the huge difference in games between Call of Duty 3 which was a PlayStation 3 launch title in late 2006 and Call of Duty ghosts also for PlayStation 3 but out a month ago looking a million times better there is so much potential in the ps4 and it's not about what it can do right this second there's only a handful of launch games and some of them aren't that great but we hope Sony will constantly expand and improve on their UI over time and one of the other things is it that's interesting to me is that console updates are still a part of technology that people only expect to upgrade once every five to ten years and I think that's largely because it takes that long to mine the full potential out of them just like those games I mentioned a Joey and I both agree diehard gamers will absolutely love the console day one but for casual folks looking at the new consoles to pick up the system as it currently exists is just promising not overly great immediately right out of the box but not underwhelming at all so it's definitely not a bad thing that's our video review of the PlayStation 4 if you enjoyed it give us a thumbs up and make sure you check out TechnoBuffalo comm for all the latest and latest tech and gaming news and all of our ps4 coverage see you guys next time what's up everyone its Ashlee thanks so much for watching that most recent video if you enjoyed it please click on the words subscribe right underneath me to get tons of more tech videos from us here at TechnoBuffalo we have got unboxings comparisons reviews recaps and everything else you can think of here on the channel if you're in the mood for more technology just click right over here to check out some of our most recent videos see you next time humans