So you’re finally thinking of shopping for a game console and you wish to know what the best gaming console is.
If you’ve done any preliminary analysis, then you’ll know that, while there are only some major players in this market, it’s truly pretty tough to make a selection. All of them appear pretty smart and that they all have rather ambiguous model names, creating it hard to tell the difference even across brands.
What’s the difference between the Xbox One S and also the Xbox One X? And what regarding the PS4 and the Xbox One in general?
There are some games that only work on some consoles and not on others? If you wanted to shop for the right gaming console, which would it be?
I can’t tell you what the right gaming console is, really, since there’s no such factor as a perfect anything. however, I will tell you which of them are the best for various functions so you can choose the one that meets your wants. Another thing I will tell you is, among the most important players, there isn’t extremely a bad console.
At least none therefore bad that the others are lightyears ahead. It really all comes to what matters most suits to you. And I would like you to recollect that, as you browse this review.
All of these gaming consoles on the market fit some roles very well. Some of them fill additional roles than others, while others have much taken over a specific niche.
But that niche remains important enough that the gaming console is a viable selection, even if it lags in other areas. At the top of the day, you should choose whichever console fits your preferences. I can’t tell you what your preferences are! however, I can list for you which of them consoles do what well.
I’ll rank them from best to not-so-best (I don’t want to mention worst – as I discussed, they’re all pretty good). If you wish to find out a little additional regarding every, then you’ll browse their individual in-depth reviews below.
If you wish to know even additional regarding gaming consoles in general, then you can read the even more in-depth buyer’s guide that comes at the end.
Best Gaming Console to Buy in 2021 Reviewed down below
PlayStation 4 Pro Console
The PS4 Pro’s style is derivative of the quality PS4 that preceded it, although we wouldn’t say that it’s an exact copy.
Actually, a standard running joke regarding the PlayStation 4 Pro is that it’s like two PS4s stacked one on top of every other. respectively, the PS4 pro takes up more space than its predecessor.
Sony also did a touch of work on the inside. The 8 jaguar cores of the AMD processor are currently clocked at 2.1GHz rather than 1.6GHz. RAM capability remains similar with 8GB of GDDR5 but it’s currently running up to 218GB/s against 176GB/s for the quality PS4.
The hard drive, at 1TB, has 500 a lot of gigabytes than the quality version.
There’s also a lot of powerful 802.11ac Wi-Fi antenna, also as a Bluetooth 4.0 receiver/transmitter.
As for the controller on the PS4 Pro, some changes were noted over the predecessor, although it still is, at its heart, a twin Shock 4 controller.
The touchpad features a light-weight bar to inform you which player you’re on, and therefore the buttons feel plenty lighter and a lot of responsive.
The switch between Bluetooth and wired mode is additionally seamless in the controller.
The performance of the PS4 is high enough that, if you play VR games or have a 4K TV, you’ll notice the difference over different screens. the data transfer method from an earlier PS4 is straightforward, as all you wish to try is hook them at the side of an ethernet cable.
That said, this console’s increased process power improves the performance across the table, together with HDR, 4K, and VR games, which are growing every year.
That improved performance will are available in a range of ways. Either you have games enjoying at 30fps at a 4K resolution, otherwise you have a lot of refined textures, or the power to play a 1080p game at a better FPS.
Those with 1080p resolution TV screens might not be ready to enjoy the improvements meant for 4K TV owners, however they’ll enjoy higher frame rates in their favorite games.
Those with 4K tv will see the largest benefits by far, including older games enjoying in native or upscaled 4K with HDR.
The VR experience is also absolute to improve with the PS4 pro. They run higher on this console and titles with PS4 pro Mode activated look higher and have quicker frame rates.
Xbox One S Gaming Console
The Xbox One S is a achievement of engineering that wows anyone who decides to give it a strive.
It manages to put a strong power provide and a 2TB drive in a very chassis that’s at the most 400th as massive as its predecessor, the Xbox One.
The only sad part is that we might never know simply however Microsoft did it. It most likely features a ton to try and do with rearranging the parts on the inside and creating for higher air flow so the entire console is additional densely packed but also more efficiently cooled. it’d also include using Santa’s elves, and a bit of magic.
The console also has an interesting overhaul over its predecessor in terms of the exterior style. Physical buttons have replaced for turning the Gaming console on and ejecting game disc, and the USB 3.0 ports are moved to the front face of the console.
Unfortunately, the Kinect port from its predecessor is conspicuously missing – you’ll got to purchase a separate adapter if you wish to use Kinect.
The console is often only sold in white, thus you don’t get a lot of selection there. thus at first blush, there aren’t many style choices.
But, they have special edition gaming consoles in different color schemes that fit with game releases.
You can even have a 3rd party skin put in on your Xbox, and controllers is customised through Microsoft’s Xbox style lab program.
Microsoft said that the chip on the Xbox One S is that the same as that of the Xbox One that preceded it. However, the hard drive is radical HD Blu-ray capable of 4K and HDR.
The Xbox One S will okay with ultra HD televisions, tho’ we wouldn’t place it on a similar level as the PS4 pro. it’s capable of 4K resolution, either upscaling games for you or offloading that task to your tv.
It also masses content a lot of quicker, even at the higher resolution, than the Xbox One, that was slower despite dealing with standard resolutions.
If you utilize your gaming console to stream apps like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and YouTube, then you may be happy to know that every of these apps features a 4K version running on the Xbox Gaming Console.
When it involves games, they appear much better than they are doing on the Xbox One, even though they’re only upscaled on the One S.
This console can run your favorite titles smoothly, ensuring an excellent experience. something attention-grabbing to note, however, is that Microsoft doesn’t intend to build any exclusives for the Xbox One S.
The Xbox One S controller appearance almost precisely the same because the Xbox One controller. However, it natively supports Bluetooth, and is the 1st Microsoft controller to have this support. that means you’ll use it not only on your console but on your pc also.
The One S controller also features a textured grip, that makes it easier to carry for long stretches, not like the controller to the Xbox One.
It also features a more powerful wireless antenna that creates it attainable to sit down farther far from the tv than you’ll from the Xbox One.
It comes in many various color variations, similarly as in some very cool limited styles just like the Cyberpunk 2077 edition.
Older Xbox One controllers will also work on this console, that is nice for people who are used to them. the only issue i’d have most well-liked on this new controller is rechargeable batteries.
Nintendo Switch Gaming Console
Take a glance at the Nintendo Switch and you’ll notice it’s making an attempt to try and do several things at a similar time. Nintendo is trying to do something unique, very like they have done before. After all, these are a similar guys that brought us 3D without 3D glasses on the Nintendo 3DS, motion controlled gaming on the Wii, and now a hybrid console on the Switch.
Understandably, once you started out to trailblaze like that, expectations and risks are planning to be very high. However, the Nintendo Switch certainly found its target and over the years the sales have taken a big uptake.
When you purchase the Nintendo Switch package, you’ll find:
- a console
- 2 Joy-Con controllers that are detachable
- a position that allows you to mix them into one gamepad for play on the TV
- 2 straps for turning the Joy-Cons into individual controllers
- A dock that you’ll use to connect your console to the tv for traditional gameplay
Those are a great deal of accessories, and that they all come with nice quality construction and ergonomics. the full setup isn’t only novel, but also incorporates a great cool factor.
The handheld mode, with its analog controls, are some things like the PlayStation Vita. The screen resolution is much higher, though, at 720p. In fact, it’s the best screen resolution I’ve seen on a hand-held console yet.
The Joy-Cons themselves have quite an lot of functionality designed into them. the correct hand has the A, B, X, and Y buttons that Nintendo has used since its SNES days and a rather awkwardly placed analog stick. There’s also a begin button that’s shaped like a plus.
On the left we’ve a minus button that’s the choose button, a share button for taking screen grabs, an analog stick, a d-pad and a couple of shoulder buttons.
The console mode needs docking the console so as to attach it to your TV. The console really will the viewing transfer rather seamlessly from the hand-held screen to the tv screen without even needing you to pause your game.
The Nintendo Switch controllers themselves are jacks of all trades. they have many different configurations, although they’re not all the most comfortable. My greatest niggle with these was the rather awkwardly placed right analog stick, that desires some finger acrobatics to work effectively.
The library on the Switch, comparable in size and popularity to those of the PlayStation and Xbox, remains growing every year. In fact, compared to what Nintendo has offered for previous consoles, it’s probably the foremost diverse.
You get nice exclusives like Legend of Zelda Link’s awakening, Super Mario Odyssey or Animal Crossing: New Horizons, also as nice indie titles, like Stardew valley.
A major disadvantage of the Switch is that it isn’t nearly as powerful as either the Xbox or the PlayStation. It undoubtedly won’t support 4K game enjoying. the hand-held can provide you with 720p while connecting it to the TV can provide you with a max resolution of 1080p.
However, this is good enough if you’re not particularly searching for the newest visual specs on the market.
Another problem with the Switch is that there aren’t that a lot of third party titles accessible for it. Sure, it’s The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt and Doom, among others, but the majority of those are available on the other platforms for a while already.
In terms of VR, there’s the Nintendo Labo, however it’s a lot of of a cardboard peripheral than a fully-fledged VR headset.
Overall, the Nintendo Switch is the best console for portability and flexibility, and also if you don’t totally want power or the newest choice of the most in designed games. If you’re comfortable with Nintendo Switch exclusives and Indie games, then this should be the best console for you.
Nintendo Switch Lite Console
The main difference between the Switch light and its relative, the Switch, is that the Switch light can only be compete in hand-held mode. You can’t dock it to be used with the tv.
As a result, it’s lighter and a lot of compact than the Switch. It comes with a smaller screen, at 5.5 inches compared to the Switch’s vi.2-inch screen, but maintains an equivalent 720p show.
A direct results of this bigger compactness is that the Nintendo Switch light feels way more comfortable as a hand-held than the Switch. this is especially important if you’ve got small hands.
That said, I still assume the most comfortable hand-held Nintendo device is the 3DS, that isn’t as wide as either the Switch or the Switch light.
The controllers on the Nintendo Switch lite are fixed. therefore no Joy-Cons with this device. On the Switch, the Joy-Cons were removable therefore you’ll dock them to a central hub to be used with the TV.
Here, the controllers are fixed in place. i’d have known as them fixed Joy-Cons, except they don’t have all of the controls that the Joy-Cons had. in place of the directional buttons is a D-Pad that, to be honest, I prefer. It feels a lot of natural to control.
Both the Switch and Switch lite permit Bluetooth and Wireless connectivity, tho’ I actually have to show that you still cannot connect wireless headphones to them.
They also each allow for external storage via MicroSD. The 32GB internal storage can thus be simply extended.
In terms of performance, there’s little difference between the Switch and therefore the Switch lite. the only major differences I experienced were that the Switch features a slightly longer battery life, doesn’t have the HD Rumble feature that the Switch has, and lacks an IR Motion Camera.
You also can’t play games designed exclusively for TV on the Switch lite. It only works with games that support hand-held mode.
Okay, perhaps I should take that back.
Technically, you can play games that don’t support hand-held mode if you get Joy-Cons on an individual basis (plus their charging grip). You’ll even be able to use HD Rumble.
But that will involve spending more cash, and I’m unsure it’d be that comfortable to use the Joy-Cons in TV mode with a screen as tiny as that of the Switch lite. It appears like a bit of a stretch compared to just shopping for the Switch.
ASUS ROG Phone 2
ASUS ROG Phone 2 also a gaming console. the worth is in the specs, just like the fact that the ROG 2 comes with an octa-core Qualcomm snapdragon 855 and processor.
Ultimately, it can reach up to only shy of 3 Gc processing power, which means this phone can play some games higher than even some mid-level gaming rigs on a budget!
But there’s various alternative hardware that creates this gaming phone value your time. for example, it comes with a large 12 gigs of LPDDR4X RAM packed into a chassis therefore tiny that it can still fit in most pockets. All that RAM ensures quick response times and fast loading of modern games.
The included 1 TB of storage suggests that you can have multiple games put in at constant time, too.
Add to all that a 6.6-inch show capable of projecting at 2340×1080 resolution at 120 Hz, and you’ve got a good piece of gaming hardware on your hands.
It even options a 1 ms response time, thus you’ll be ready to play competitively in several of your favorite games without suffering compared to those on traditional consoles.
We also love that you can play a plethora of top-tier titles on this gaming phone.
Over a hundred games are out there at 120 FPS, as well as many modern classics like Minecraft, Temple Run 2, and more.
It’s a touch unfortunate that many battle royale titles, like Fortnite, are fast to 60 FPS, so they can’t make the most of all that this phone has got to provide.
As a piece of gaming hardware, the ROG 2 options many vents to keep the inside cool because the hardware works to deliver a phenomenal visual experience.
A 6000 mAh battery provides enough juice for concerning 2 days’ value of use before you wish to recharge, even after you think about the 120 Hz refresh rate.
Recharging this gaming phone is pretty simple because of the side charging slot, and there’s an extra USB-C charging port on the bottom, alongside a headphone jack.
Alternative ports include a twin nano-SIM card slot, and volume and power buttons on the right-hand facet of the device. It’s ultimately a pretty simple phone to use.
Furthermore, the ROG 2 comes with a durable “aero” case that can improve cooling while not compromising the general integrity of the device.
Since it comes with the purchase, you don’t got to waste time picking up a dedicated case after the fact.
Even with all the wonderful gaming-focused options, this comes with a fairly solid twin camera also.
The camera will take 48 or 24 MP photos counting on whether you use the rear or front lenses, and it’s compatible with most GSM networks, as well as many staples like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and more.
All in all, the ROG 2 is basically a small gaming computer you can keep in your pocket for quite hefty selling price.
If you can stomach the value, it’s a good thanks to enjoy a more mobile gaming experience while not sacrificing graphics or process quality too much.
Microsoft Xbox One X
The Xbox One X is all concerning power. If you actually wish the cutting edge of power in terms of gambling consoles presently on the market, then it’s exhausting to outdo the One X. in fact it’ll be outdone by Microsoft’s new Series X slated for later this year, but for currently the One X remains the king.
The real win for the Xbox One X is simply how much raw power it packs. It comes with an 8-core CPU clocked at 2.3GHz with a 12GB GDDR5 RAM chip.
It additionally offers 6 teraflops of GPU power via an 1172MHz (clocked speed) GPU.
This is some serious computing power for a gaming console, and it’s all permanently reason, since it’s all to enable native 4K HDR gaming.
The only fail in the hardware department is the HDD, that is locked at 1TB of storage space. 4K games are massive, and so the HDD includes a tendency to fill up pretty quickly.
Because of its huge power, the Xbox One X performs very well. All the games look way higher, whether they’re 4K or only 1080p.
In fact, for 1080p games, the Xbox One X does supersampling to boost the images.
Supersampling works by forcing the game to render in 4K as if it were connected to a 4K tv, leading to concerning 4 times the amount of detail as you’d get at a 1080p resolution.
Now, of course, this information can’t all be displayed on a 1080p screen, however the detail can still be richer than it would otherwise have been.
As a result, pictures look sharper and fewer jagged. Not everybody can appreciate this feature, however people who really care regarding quality can love it.
The full power of the Xbox One X is unleashed on a 4K HDR screen, wherever you’ll see output from native 4K HDR games in its full glory.
The Xbox One X additionally improves frame rates. Even the best consoles struggle to hit 60fps and often drop to 55 or lower.
The Xbox One X includes a ton fewer of these drops, offering a more consistent frame rate overall.
In terms of style, the One X is comparable to the One S. In fact, i might say the only difference between the 2 are the colour scheme and the positioning of the disc tray.
Another difference between the disc trays, tho’ this one isn’t a visual difference, is that the disc tray on the One X can play 4K Blu-ray discs.
PlayStation 4 Slim
The PS4 Slim is a superb starter console. All the exclusives that are accessible on the PS4 pro are accessible here.
However, if you don’t wish to fork out further bucks for all the performance perks of a PS4 pro, then this is a superb alternative.
This normal PS4 can get the job done for most games, with a respectable 30FPS and 1080p resolution. the reality is that these specs are good enough for many people to enjoy their favorite games, and only the most tech-savvy shoppers will yearn for something more powerful.
I would say that, at best, the PS4 Slim is a 1080p console, and extremely can’t go beyond that.
The one major place i’d say it beats the PS4 pro is in terms of energy efficiency.
Sony claims that this console consumes up to 28 less power than the PS4 pro. I can’t test that, but I can say the fan wasn’t as noisy as the one on the PS4 pro.
Fan noise is a good indicator of how much power a machine is using, as an overworked machine can draw more air to chill itself down.
That said, I still felt like the disk drive was quite noisy , whether i was putting in a game or just enjoying a Blu-ray.
Pretty much all over else this console is similar to the PS4 professional. The UI looks a bit additional responsive, however I’m unsure it’s such a big improvement that you’ll notice the difference.
The network performance on the PS4 Slim looks even as quick because the PS4 pro. this is understandable. Considering what number streaming services are designed into this console, including a game download store and online gaming, it’s heavily reliant on network performance.
The PS4 Slim options an 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac 5GHz connection including an LAN jack. this is an improvement over older PS4s, that only had a 2.4GHz connection.
Sharing gameplay videos and pictures is additionally super easy on the PS4 Slim. a dedicated ‘Share’ button on the controller permits you to save up to 15 minutes of gameplay, that you can then save to a flash drive or upload to Sony’s PSN network or YouTube and Facebook. Holding down the Share button can take a screenshot.
The PS4 Slim also supports livestreaming on Twitch, tho’ you’ll need to make sure you have got a quick internet connection to make this possible.
Conclusion
Now we come to the end of our Gaming console review. whether you’re buying a console for yourself or for somebody else; whether you enjoy gaming or you’re searching for something to assist you to prevent boredom while you’re at home, the best consoles in this review should keep you and yours highly entertained for an extended time.
No matter what your taste is, I’m pretty positive you’ll find something here that works well for you, and I’m assured you’ll enjoy it.
