I recently recieved the Micrososft Xbox 360 Slim with 250 GB hard disk for my birthday. This was a replacement for my original xbox 360 which keeps crashing and is about to give up on me entirely.

The first thing that struck me is the noise, or lack of it, when I turned the new console on. Previous models are famous for sounding like a jumbo jet trying to take off, but happily this version of the console is more compact, much quieter, and far less likely to overheat.

If you're into DLC (Downloadable Content) for your games, the 250gb hard disk gives you plenty of room. With the massive choice of Xbox Arcade games and expansion packs for existing titles, it really pays to have this amount of storage space. I personally hated having to carefully manage the content on my old xbox; if I wanted to download a new game or demo, I often had to free up space by deleting older ones before I'd properly played them. With 250gb to play with, I'm sure it will be a long time before I have that problem again!

The presence of an HDMI cable on this new version of the console is also welcome, meaning you get the most out of your HD television (if you have one). One downside is on audio; my previous xbox had the Red, Green and Blue video input cables, along with separate Red and White audio cables, so I could hook up the video to my TV and the audio to my stereo. Needless to say, this makes for a really good and immersive experience. Unfortunately, with the addition of HDMI, there are no separate audio cables, so I think I'm going to need to buy some new ones to get my audio hooked up properly. An added expense, but it should hopefully be worth the price!

Finally, the built-in wireless adapter means I can play online from any room in the house with a TV!