A Few Things I Learned Watching The PlayStation 5 Teardown Video

Sony posted the above teardown video of the PlayStation 5 yesterday and I finally got around to watching it. These are the things I learned that stood out:

• This thing is HUGE. Yeah, we’ve all seen the comparison pictures but it wasn’t until the beginning of this video that I realized how big it was. It is bigger than Ootori-san’s torso.
• The display stand works with both orientations. The system includes a display stand that can be used in both the vertical and horizontal orientation. In vertical mode, the stand is secured to the console by a single screw. Should you want to change orientation, the screw can be stored in the base and the hole can be plugged using cap, also stored in the base. You then attach the same stand to the back by a pair of hook clips. The stand also accounts for the system’s curved panels to make it nice and level.

• There are dust catchers. The console has a single GIANT fan to draw in air for cooling, and there are two pockets that are easily accessible that catches the dust. The two pockets make it super easy to vacuum out the dust.
• There’s an M.2 slot with PCIe 4.0 support. For future storage expansion, there’s a hidden compartment where you can insert an M.2 solid state drive. Unfortunately, there’s nothing on the market currently that is compatible with this system, probably due to a custom SSD controller, so I’d hold off on buying a drive for now.
• The optical drive is reinforced to reduce drive noise and vibration. I think one of the earliest memories I have is using my old PlayStation 2 vertically and worrying the thing was going to explode from the noise it made reading a disc. And that’s been true all the way through to the PS4. Hopefully, all the extra padding will finally mitigate this issue.

• It uses liquid metal for cooling. Sounds very Terminator 2.

• You can grill a hot dog or two on the heatsink. No, this was not demo’ed in the video, but like everything else about this system, the heat sink is gigantic.

If you like watching teardown videos, this one doesn’t disappoint.