[pdch]

I will preface this by saying I have a 2017 Vizio 75 P-Series, which is by no means a cheap 4K HDR set, so you may not get the same results I do (especially if you are on an edge lit Sammy). I also have a high end 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos setup in my media room.

That said, OMFG the x1x is INCREDIBLE. I switched from a Gears of War Red Xbox One S - thinking that the difference would be nominal after reading all of the "tech" blog reviews. Boy was I wrong.

First thing I tried: Gears of War 4 of course. Don't know if it was a bug or intentional, but one thing the One S could never do was Atmos in game. It could do Atmos on 4k Blu-ray and Netflix, but Gears always said PCM. Atmos is INCREDIBLE in game. Hearing drop shots go overhead and the Helicopter boss in Horde Mode was amazing. I tried running Horde in both performance and visual mode. Performance mode is a silky smooth 60fps. The increased frame rate is very noticeable. Visual mode is a wonder to behold. It looks like an entirely different game. It is so beautiful that I prefer the half frame rate just to look at the splendor of this game in 4k.

Second, I popped in CoD WWII. This one really surprised me. I figured Activision, being in Sony's pocket, would not put much effort into the X1X enhancements. This game is absolutely beautiful. Even the bw sequence at the beginning is so much more beautiful with HDR properly adjusted. Draw distance? What is that? There were times I would get shot simply because I was distracted at how real some aspects of the game were. I had just played through the first campaign mission on my 1S - and decided to restart the game for the 1X to do a proper comparison. There is no comparison. I was so enthralled that I played through the entire campaign.

Last, thanks to Windows Central informing everyone that it is out there, I ran the "Insects" game (or whatever you would classify this tech showcase as). Holy Shist that is one incredible demo. It is so beautifully realistic that there is absolutely NO way to even describe it other than putting someone in front of a 1X with a good 4k set and Atmos setup. I literally let this damn thing loop for over an hour, switching different things on and off, changing time of day and color combinations for the flower and lady bugs. You just have no idea how much of a difference HDR and 4k makes until you run something like this. The level of detail is breathtaking. Whoever put this thing together should get an award. They should also be shot for making it so damn short!