A technical breakdown has shown exactly what Sony has changed in the new PS5 Slim Digital Edition model that quietly rolled out in Europe recently. This, of course, is the controversial PS5 Slim model that features downgraded storage with no price reduction. However, there are quite a lot of other changes inside and out too, including a visual update that may appease some prospective PS5 buyers.
Sony has a long history of making subtle updates to PlayStation consoles, often aimed at shaving off manufacturing costs while keeping performance at par with existing models. Traditionally, these periodic model revisions made PlayStation consoles cheaper for consumers over time, but the PS5 has bucked this trend so far. It first went on sale nearly five years ago and has seen multiple hardware revisions since. Owing to tumultuous global economic conditions and difficulties in reducing chip sizes, the PS5 is more expensive to buy in 2025 than it was at launch — a previously unheard-of phenomenon for a console.
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New PS5 Slim Model Features a Matte Black Center Section
Sony recently courted controversy by introducing a new revision of the PS5 Slim Digital Edition in Europe that gets a smaller 825GB SSD instead of the prior 1TB drive. YouTuber Austin Evans got his hands on this new PS5 model (dubbed CFI-2216), and aside from the 27 percent reduction in SSD capacity, he discovered several other changes. Chief among these is matte plastic for the black central section of the PS5 Slim chassis, which previously sported a gloss finish. Given that a lot of PS5 owners complained about the gloss black plastic picking up dust and scratches easily, the switch to matte could be a welcome update.
The revised PS5 Slim Digital Edition is also about 4.23 ounces lighter than the prior model thanks to internal adjustments like thinner metal shielding and an optimized heatsink design. These are effectively in line with the Sony console's previous hardware revisions, and compared to the launch model PS5 from 2020, the revised Slim Digital Edition is nearly 25 percent lighter overall. Despite these changes, Evans found that performance, thermals, and power consumption remain essentially the same, so in terms of how the new PS5 Slim Digital Edition model runs, players are very unlikely to notice any difference.
Still, the decision to cut storage while keeping the console's €500 price tag unchanged will objectively reduce value in the consumer's eyes. One of the biggest complaints surrounding the pre-Slim PS5 was its 667GB of usable storage, which is barely enough for three to four AAA games these days. The PS5 Slim's larger 1TB SSD was a much-needed upgrade, but for European buyers at least, Sony has retracted it for the Digital Edition. There's currently no word on whether this new PS5 Slim Digital Edition model will come to the US, but Sony will hopefully look at the feedback and consider going back to the 1TB SSD.
