Bill Harris at DubiousQuality got his hands on two different models of Xbox 360 and compared them not just with his PS3 purchased via the SonyStyle credit card promotion he talked about before, but with each other. He noticed one curious difference that I haven’t seen mentioned elsewhere. The Xbox 360 controller on the newest models is slightly lighter, has a slightly different color to a stripe on it, and has a D-pad that he thinks is of lower quality than the one that shipped with his launch Xbox 360 unit. No sir, he doesn’t like it.

Other comparisons he made included the noise levels of each console, highlighting how the quieter disc reader in the newest HDMI-equipped Premium models makes a big difference between machines and how the PS3 makes the most pleasing type of background noise of all of the machines, even if the numbers don’t show it to be that much quieter than the 360’s. If he really wants noise, though, he should kick the PS3 into high gear by running Folding@Home.

One minor note. He says the newest 360’s with the HDMI ports also have the latest heat sink installed. I’m not sure if he knows that for certain — he didn’t cite a source or even note it as something that might not be public knowledge — or if he is just assuming that’s so. For someone to know that, they’d have to dismantle a brand new console. Has anyone out there seen this done on a Premium HDMI 360?