Heya MS chartz folks,

I will soon be an X360 owner as most of you are, however, I need your help in deciding what kind of an owner I'll be. As you may (or may not) know, I'm a minimum-wage cheapskate and as such, I always hunt for the cheapest prices I can find... now, I figured that there are 2 models of the 360 slim, 4GB and 250GB. The hard-drives are, as expected, swappable. Now, as it is cheaper, I'm naturally leaning toward the 4GB, hoping to add a hard-drive later on... however, my concern is: are there ANY other hardware differences between the two sans HDD? Only hardware please, any game bundles can be easily recouped I'm sure...

Muchos gracias! ;)

What do you mean with swappable ? You still can only use MS hard drives. So there is no difference to the old 360 models since you could buy a new one for them as well.

But you have the ability to use up to 2 16GB USB flash drives to get some more space without buying a new HDD.

Other than that I think the only difference is that the 4GB is matt and the 250GB is glossy

4gb is Matte, 250gb is glossy. Only real hardware difference.

There is no difference between two of them only the HDD :)

Xbox 360 4 GB

A second SKU which includes 4 GB of internal flash storage and has matte black casing (much like the Xbox 360 Elite).It replaced the Xbox 360 Arcade.  Although this model has on-board storage, Xbox Product Director Aaron Greenberg confirmed that it does have a drive bay which Microsoft has "the opportunity to use in the future".[41] On August 20, 2010, Microsoft announced a 250 GB stand-alone hard drive for use with Xbox 360 S models priced at US$129.99.[45]

First, you must know, what are you going to do with XBOX.. from your Signature, you already have PS3, so i really doubt, you would download many ARCADE GAMES. As you also mention, you will buy games from retails, not downloading them.. So yes, i can recommend you the 4 GB model.. maybe later, you can easily buy higher capacity. Also, don't forget, that you can format 2xremovable drives (USB Stick) - one up to 16 gigs.. so you can have 32 gigs at all from them. But.. compare the prices.

I Would recommend you  the 250 gig model.. This is why:

1. Installing games on HDD - you need to have the original DVD still in DVD-drive, but only for starting games. XBOX is then really quiet, much faster loading times etc.. (4 gigs are really the minimum)

2. XBOX Live Arcade games - there are plenty of great ARCADE exclusive games (especially Shadow Complex, LIMBO) - shadow has something round 1 gig..

3. Game Add-Ons - some are really huge.. over 500 Mega..

4. Demos and Videos - you know, how much you will need..

5. Price of the HDD.. if you will count it right, you will really have cheaper HDD with 250 Gig, than with the choise you mention (4 gig model 250 gig HDD).. 

I got 120 gig HDD (have elite xbox) , and it is really fine..  5 full games installed, and round 88 gigs of Arcade games on it.. still 20 gig of free space :) ..

It's up to you..  :)

I mean that you can buy an MS HDD later on, not put just anything into it :P

I did forget about the flash drive option, it sounds good.

Matte is alright, I even prefer it. My laptop and PS3 are both glossy and their dust gathering abilities are second to none!

Anything else perhaps?

edit: was posting with only Barozi's reply up. Thanks for the confirmations, gonna go for 4GB.

@tomatko: gonna go for 4 still - since I'm importing one by post, an xbox that is $100 cheaper will greatly lower my import taxes. An HDD is something that I will SURELY get later on anyway!

Just so you know you can actually use an external hdd and not only an MS one. My friend bough a 4gb slim and is using an external one terabyte hdd on it. The only thing is you have to partition how much space u want for the 360 since once memory is designated for the 360 it can't be used on a pc.

I'm not sure how exactly he did it but he said its really easy so I can ask for you if you want.

Not only this but as Mendicate pointed out a few months back, you can use a HDD from a fat 360. Sure you'd be voiding the warranty of the HDD and you'd have to do a little work but hell, these things are only minor obstacles ( especially to a real cheapskate). Can probably buy a second hand HDD somewhere for pretty cheap. If you do buy one second hand then the warranty would most likely have expired anyway just leaving you with the slight hassle of buying the right torx bit driver and opening that bad boy up. I'm surprised how little this option is brought up actually.

EDIT: A quick Youtube search of Mendicate Bias was saying will help, if decide to go that route.

Cheapskate option:  Use your PS3 to download movies and trailers.  Buy a 16GB memory card (or do a d21lewis and use an external HDD--big enough to use with your 360, PS3, and PC!!  Only 16GB can be used with the 360, though.  Microsoft restrictions).  You'll have to play games from the disc instead of installing them, though.  Use the Memory Card of HDD to save your Live Arcade games and any trailers/videos/demos/etc. You may want.  Use the console's memory to save your game saves.

-Installing really does make a difference in loading times.  In a few games, it's cuts the load times from around 30 seconds to about 5 seconds!!  Some people claim there's no difference in playing from the disc to the HDD but I've seen this firsthand.  I should post a video on youtube--and maybe I will.

You go the cheap route now if money is an issue.  Get the HDD later, even though it will cost you more money in the long run.  Enjoy your two systems.  They share a lot of the same games but they still have very different identities.  You're gonna love it!

* I use a 500gb Seagate FreeAgent HDD.  I recommend it because it's very cheap and very reliable.  Everything that uses an HDD used it in my house.  I even downloaded trailers from the PS3's PSN and watched them on my 360.  I take videos from my PC and watch them on my consoles.  Good thing to have and it's very tiny, too!

I'll be checking out that option! Right now, more consoles than just my 360 will need an HDD, so I may get one for all of them (for now).

Thanks!