As you may or may not yet know, the Xbox 360 Premium consoles in the US will all be shipping with an HDMI port soon. So if you don’t want to spend the money on the Elite, you’ll have a chance to get true digital 1080p from the Xbox 360 with the newer Premiums.
The guys over at Joystiq dug a little deeper and found out a very easy way to tell what consoles will have the coveted HDMI port. Just check the side of the box for the “HDMI port” text. Supposedly all consoles manufactured after July 1st will have HDMI.
I’ve been using HDMI out on my Xbox 360 Elite and I have to say it gives a much cleaner and vibrant picture on my HDTV than component. For the record, I have a Samsung 50″ 1080p DLP set.
Joystiq dug a little deeper and found the code name Zephyr on the label, which indicates the new Premiums have the same motherboard and new heat sink as the Elite’s (remember Zephyr is the code-name for the Elite motherboard). This also shows these new Premiums do NOT have the 65nm chips, codenamed Falcon. I guess we’ll have to wait a bit longer for those smaller, cooler chips.
