XBox 360s are starting to be in stock (finally), so I went by my local Best Buy to pick one up. Yeah, I would’ve gotten one sooner or later, so… I’d rather it be sooner than later. Also, the DVD drive on my old XBox was starting to get flakey, so that’s also an excuse to get a replacement.

So after playing with it for about a week or so, here’s 3 things I like about the new XBox 360:

- The Dashboard is very well done, and highly polished. The blades interface works pretty well. I also like how I can download playable demos, mini arcade games, and movie trailers for free. Geometry Wars is the bomb.

- Wireless remote controller. No latency or lag of any sort, and will also automatically turn off after you don’t use it for a while. And like most other remote controls, there’s now a power button on it. No more walking the 5 feet to my TV to turn stuff on and off.

- Shiny prettier graphics. I got Ghost Recon: Advance Warfighter, and the graphics are very very pretty. This is definitely a next-gen game.

3 things that are not so nice:

- Power supply is a brick and almost as big as the 360 itself. I guess that’s one way to keep the size of the 360 system down.

- The 360 gets really hot, and I think I’ve had my 360 freeze up at least 3 times now because of the heat :-/ And because the 360 gets so hot, the fans that cool it are pretty loud.

- In the Dashboard, I can’t download something from XBox Live and do something else. Most of the game demos are 300+ megs, so that means it’s gonna take a while to download. But it’s impossible to go do something else, like play a game and have it download stuff as a background process.

And finally, here’s a picture of the new system

And if you’re on XBox Live, look me up as Quixotic54

PS, I’ll be in VanBC this Easter weekend, for my cousin’s wedding.