The ability to disassemble any piece of tech is more than a little titillating. For anyone with an appreciation for technology or the knowhow to be able to pick things apart and put them back together, tearing down a gaming console and making custom adjustments is nothing less than a great weekend. So all those nerds who do that kind of stuff for a living are no doubt extremely excited to learn that Sony’s upcoming next-gen console — the PlayStation 5 (like you didn’t already know what we were talking about) — is remarkably easy to disassemble! Sony posted an official teardown of the machine, highlighting some of the more important elements held inside that bulky body.
Going to pieces
So the first thing to note about the PS5 is how massive that thing is. Yasuhiro Ootori, Sony’s head of mechanical design for the PS5, was dwarfed by the console which is basically the size of his entire torso. Yet it makes sense when you begin to delve into exactly what’s inside the PS5. We’ve attached the video if you want the full in-depth discussion but for the sake of brevity, we’ll highlight the things that stood out most.
While it might seem superficial, two aspects that really excited everyone at Stuff was the inclusion of a base for vertical mounting and the removable faceplates. The base is a great addition the console as if you’re standing a thing that large and that expensive. You want as much support for the machine as possible. The base can also be clipped to the PS5 if you’d rather have it stand horizontally, which is probably the safer way to go anyway.
The removable face plates are even bigger, for the simple reason that it means Sony can potentially ship different colours to be swapped out for the base white colouring. Which is great news for those who want to customise their consoles but also for anyone wanting to avoid how grimy that thing will look after a few months. That’s the problem with an all-white chassis: it picks up and reflects dust and dirt worse than any other colour.
The cooling fan is also monstrous, which makes sense given the size of the machine it needs to keep cool. The 20mm diameter, 45mm thick, double-sided air intake makes sure there’s always a decent amount of airflow . The thing most people would be concerned about when hearing that there’s a massive fan involved is that the console will potentially be loud. And if you’ve ever played on a PS4 Pro, you know these things can sound like a space shuttle taking off. Fortunately, the PS5 also comes equipped with a “liquid metal” cooling system to take some of the strain off the fan, which is also being helped along by a proper heat sink.
Those are the three biggest things to take from the teardown: Interchangeable faceplates, an easily mountable stand and, most significantly, the redesigned cooling unit. The PlayStation launches locally on 19 November for R12,000 if you want the version with the Blue-Ray Disc Drive or R10,000 for the diskless version.
(Source: The Verge)