Well, it is possible it's new and not a refurb. The letter I got said it was a refurb but that may just be their standard form letter because it mentions all serial number changes, extended warranty policies and such. Maybe it was just easier to send that one and not a specific letter. The unit is pristine. Not a piece of dust, scratch or anything so it may be new. It most certainly has the new heat sink -- I can clearly see it with a good flashlight.
It is very quiet. I did notice something interesting last night while playing the Eternal Sonata demo: The fans in the rear of the unit seem to be "variable speed". I stood next to it and could hear them going faster, then slower. I moved the unit farther out into the open and the "higher" speed didn't come on. This may be another improvement in the unit to help combat heat -- I dunno... The DVD is totally silent or so it seems. I just messed around with Halo 2 for about 2 minutes. It was late and I didn't have a whole lot of time to mess with it.
I'll post more impressions of the console soon.
To the poster above, yes this is my first broken console. Ever. I've had everything from Pong, Intellivision, Atari, 3DO, All sega systems, all Nintendo systems, etc. ad nauseum. Other than the "blow in the cartridge issue" with my 64, this is my first ever console failure.
With all this said, I'm very satisfied with the repair. The turnaround was about as fast as it can be (barring a hot-swap of course) and clearly the most recent fixes have all been applied. Kudos for MS for making the effort to fix all consoles the right way instead of being half-assed. If this is their policy for every console, they will have the RROD issues ironed out pretty damn quick.
I hate trolls.
Systems I currently own: 360, PS3, Wii, DS Lite (2)
Systems I've owned: PS2, PS1, Dreamcast, Saturn, 3DO, Genesis, Gamecube, N64, SNES, NES, GBA, GB, C64, Amiga, Atari 2600 and 5200, Sega Game Gear, Vectrex, Intellivision, Pong. Yes, Pong.
