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Weighing in at just over 4.5 pounds, the PlayStation 3 Superslim lives up to its name, shedding nearly three pounds from the Slim and 6.5 from the original (monstrous) 11-pound console. Sadly, the clean, classy matte finish of the Slim model has been replaced with the glossy, fingerprint-prone plastic that Vita, PSP and first-gen PS3 owners have come to know and loathe. You may not notice the glossy facade at first, however, as the biggest hardware change in the new PS3 is where you insert disc-based media: a top-loading slider gets moved to the left, revealing a space for your brand new copy of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception Game of the Year Edition (bundled with the 250GB console).
Aside from being the most notable change to the new PS3, it's ... well, it looks and feels terrible, to put it plainly. Not only is the new design unfriendly to home entertainment centers (where most PS3s reside, we'd argue), but it feels cheap and unstable -- a distinct step down from the previous two models' front-loading tray design.
What's different
The familiar hum of a game console -- from the Harrier jet noise of the original Xbox 360's fans to the nigh-imperceptible din of the last-gen PS3 -- is hard to escape. The new PS3 manages to make approximately zero noise; it is without a doubt the quietest home console we've ever heard (er, not heard, rather). That's likely due to the ubiquity of air vents found all over the machine, not to mention three hardware iterations and years of R&D. An entire horizontal half of the rear is dedicated fan space, and the bottom is framed by openings, giving the internals plenty of space to breathe.
