- This video may contain my most blatant conflict of interest yet,
but you guys don't care because you love the drama. And neither does our sponsor dbrand.
That's right, dbrand's not only sponsored this video, but they actually bought me two sets
of Sony, geez, PlayStation 5 console covers,
assuming probably, that I was going to compare them
to dbrand's own Darkplates, which I gotta say dbrand,
I'm not really a fan of the false advertising that you've got going on here.
I mean, I ordered a Darkplate and this is very clearly light.
Okay? Can we all just take a moment to shout out dbrand for deceptive advertising practices?
Darkplate? Excuse me? God, I hate those guys so much.
Anyway. I've also got a PlayStation, sorry, Jono. This is your PlayStation 5.
- [Jono] It's fine. - I've also got a PlayStation 5
that we can try out the official, first-party console covers on.
So what color do you guys wanna start with today? You wanna do black or do you wanna do pink?
- Start with black. - Start with black? All right. - It's not pink, it's red. - It's red?
Cosmic Red. I'd say that color's a little nebulous if you ask me.
(drum rolls) Ah.
No? All right. It's a whole galaxy of puns up here.
Ah, I left my Jerry-rig-everything box cutter at home. Still got my spider comb.
What does Sony have to say for themselves? Okay, for PS5 consoles with a disc drive.
Fair enough. Midnight black cover, blah, match them with a matching dual sense wireless controller
to complete the look. Ah, that would be amazing. Good solid packaging.
Definitely love to see minimal use of plastics
and other non-recyclable materials, especially for products like this
that are not especially fragile, right?
I mean, I didn't say none. I said minimal, minimal. Okay, hmm.
I actually kind of like the finish here. Sony knows a thing or two
about plastic molding and I will tell you that much.
Absolutely immaculate surface finish on this
and a very pleasing, almost soft touch feel to it.
You wanna touch it, Andy? Is it the same or better? - Ooh. - It's got kind of like a velvety feel to it, doesn't it?
- Yeah. - I like it. Let's have a look at how it's gonna do in terms of like fingerprint resistance.
Horst, help me a out here. I say,
that this is a pretty fingerprint resistant surface.
Well, I've been told that you are the fingerprint king. - Fingerprints are a bit of a bug bear on Mac Address
and my hands are quite clammy today. So let's see.
- Yep, we did manage to, I will say you're, (Horst chuckles) you are definitely more finger printy than me,
but watch this. Without even a microfiber cloth or anything.
If I just like give it a little. - It's, it's an improvement, yeah?
If only iPhone screens were like that.
(everyone laughs) Subscribe to Mac Address. Lots of great Apple content over there.
He tries to use an iPad as a phone for like two weeks.
Anyway, one of the big controversies around the first-party Sony plates
has been that the colors do not match, the controllers they're supposed to match.
I've heard a lot of criticism, notably from dbrand, sponsoring this video,
that the black looks more like dark blue. Frankly, I've seen pictures that are convincing
that the black is more of a dark blue. My sample looks great.
And honestly, the light makes more of a difference than the the actual difference in color here.
It's not blue at all. Aargh. - Pull on the PS logo.
Every single time. That's what I'm pulling on. I'm pulling on the PS logo, Andy, come on.
I swear, every time I try to do it. It's really easy once you know how to do it.
I always wanna pull it up, but it's not up, which makes sense,
because if you were to pick up your console by the popped collar here then that would be bad, right?
So you wanna, there you go, right. Come off down.
All right. So let's take this white console and make our lives a little less white.
Shall we? Oops, this is this side. For those of you who are wondering, by the way,
as I'm finishing applying these actually dark plates
to the PlayStation 5, why dbrand would sponsor
a video showcasing their competitor's product, you can check out
our full unboxing of dbrand's Darkplates 2.0,
which also of course have matching skins and all of that good stuff,
here on ShortCircuit. We go into the whole legal drama
between dbrand and Sony that led to the release of the Darkplates 2.0 version,
rather than the ones that are styled like the original PlayStation 1.
And that styling really, is where a lot of the polarizability?
Polarizationess? Where a lot of the controversy
around the look of the PlayStation 5 comes from.
Though, I have to say in spite of the weird shape
it undeniably looks better in black just like it did
when we checked out dbrand's original Darkplates, way back in the day,
which looked pretty much like this, with a couple of changes.
Sony of course didn't have to go with a non infringing pattern on the inside.
So it has the original. Here we go. PlayStation circle, square, triangle stuff.
How much are these? - $54.99. - $54.99.
So they're priced about the same, but the functionality is not quite the same.
So here's the difference. Oh, dbrand's version.
Darkplates 2.0, obviously available in different colors.
So they've got this delightful, retro gray, that personally I absolutely love,
really reminds me of the original PlayStation 1. And they've got a different shape,
which allowed them to actually produce them without infringing Sony's patent
on this particular popped collar shape.
And of course the cooling fans. So dbrand has little filtered openings for,
here, hold on. Let's actually, yeah, let's go ahead and pop this one.
For both the intake of the cooling fan on the PlayStation 5
as well as the other more different intake on the PlayStation 5.
These are easily, you just got it. There you go.
Can clean them and pop them back into place, if you're into that sort of thing.
Now I haven't personally tested it, but Gamers Nexus did a really great video,
showcasing how much of a difference it makes to the internal temperatures of the PlayStation 5,
if you don't have the intake fans covered. It's obviously kind of common sense
that covering intake fans is not as good as not covering intake fans, but there you go.
Now let's take a look at the red color, shall we? We're gonna put light strips onto a console
with the Sony plates. - Whoa.
- Yeah, that's right. See, just because you buy the first-party one from Sony
'cause maybe you like the color. Maybe you like the popped collar look,
doesn't mean can't still trick out your consoles with dbrand skins and light strips,
and all kinds of cool stuff. Did I mention dbrand is the sponsor of this video?
'Cause they are. They paid us money to talk about their competitor's product.
Look at that. God, they're stupid. Pricing's very similar.
So it comes down to whether you care about buying the official Sony product
or having like better cooling on your console. Let's have a look.
Wow, camera really does not capture this color very well.
I'm gonna get my color checker back out here, ladies and gentlemen,
'cause this has like got a very pinky look to it, in my opinion,
supposed to be Cosmic Red. Okay, so they actually have a pink one.
Yeah, this isn't pretty pinky red. I don't know. I'm not saying I don't like it.
I think it looks great, but the camera says red.
You guys don't think it has a pink to it, am I crazy? - [Andy] It has a pink and purplish tint.
- [Jono] Yeah, like if I didn't know the names and you said that was pink, I'm like, okay.
- Honestly this looks really close to me too. This looks great.
Maybe this one's a little farther off. I think that really has more to do
with the difference in surface finish though. I mean we're going through this at our new house.
What we're finding is, that the difference between one shade of paint and another
is actually far less than the difference between a single shade of paint
under different lighting conditions. So it's almost impossible to get everything matching
under (plate crashing) all conditions.
Well, I guess, we inadvertently are going to check and see how, yeah,
how durable it is, if you happen to drop your PlayStation or something.
Okay, let's just make sure nothing falls anymore. Honestly, almost anything looks better
than the original white to me. What do you guys think of this color? - [Andy] That's better than the white.
- Yeah, I really like it actually. Okay, but hold on.
Now, I'm getting paid by dbrand, but nobody else here is getting paid by dbrand,
so I wanna hear your honest thoughts. I pay all you guys the same.
That is my personal Linus Tech Tips guarantee. What would you rather have?
Cosmic Red or Retro, I don't know, Fuze?
- [Andy] Are we just talking colors, or? - Just talking color. Just talking color.
- [Jono] I'm Cosmic Red. - You like the Cosmic Red color? - [Andy] Cosmic Red.
You guys like the Cosmic Red. All right. God, you young kids.
You young kids who didn't have a PlayStation 1. - [Jono] But I will have to cut off that popped collar.
- See I'm different. I'm an old guy who didn't have a PlayStation 1.
I didn't have any game consoles at that point in my life. All right.
Let's have a look at our light strips here now. These are cool.
The PlayStation has these little like strips of light
but out of the box, you can't change the color of them. But with dbrand's light strips
we can actually change the color. So why don't we go with not Cosmic Red?
Actually, I wonder if this one would match better. What do you guys want for the color?
Help me out here. We got purple, orange, other more different orange, green, more different green,
purple, other more different purple. - Green. - You want green?
- Yeah. - Really, green in this? - Lambo. - Yeah.
- All right, you're not wrong. You're not wrong, Andy. Okay. Now I have no idea how to apply the light strips.
I don't even know where the lights are. The truth is I don't have a PlayStation 5 console.
I mean, I own multiple PlayStation 5 consoles but I asked my son.
I was like, when we move into the new place should we get an Xbox or like a PlayStation or something?
Do you want one? He's like, why would we need that? (crew laughs)
- My son. - That's my son. - That's my son, that's my boy.
My boy right there. Wouldn't we just put a PC there, you know?
All right, I need to figure out how to do this now. - But then there's the argument
of playing multiplayer games, too. - Multi-player games, really?
You wanna talk to people online? Have you met the people online? It's like literally a meme.
How toxic online gamers are? No offense. Love you gamers, but I don't need you in my body.
They go here, right? - Yeah. - They must. Oh, there, for crying out loud.
It's right here. Now this is a little confuzzling.
It seems to go all the way down to here. Is there another piece? It's only at the top.
All right. So how do I tell, how do I tell right and left?
Oh, that's why it darkens towards the end. Oh, this is kinda cool.
Is it right from the front or right from the back? You know what I'm saying?
Like, are we doing it from behind or doing it from the front? We could look it up on dbrand's website.
They actually have fantastic tutorials for how to apply all their products.
And they will mock you if you don't use them. Bring it on.
I think you were right about the orientation though, Jono, this seems right.
It's going on pretty good here. Oh, yeah.
- [Jono] If it's wrong you can just peel it off. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one of the great things about dbrand skins, okay.
They don't leave any residue. So if you ever wanna remove them and replace them with a different dbrand skin,
or you just get tired of the look or whatever, super easy to get off.
No residue, no nothing. That's what I always say.
Quality products from bad people. They do have a good customer service.
All right, cool. Oh, I'm excited about this. This is gonna look awesome.
Even if you buy the Sony product they're still gonna get you for these light strip things.
Oh, cool.
I like it. That's awesome.
I mean, of course I was paid to tell you, I like it. But fun fact, FTC guidelines,
which I am not beholden to, because I'm not an American and neither is dbrand,
but FTC guidelines tell me that even if I'm sponsored
I'm still not allowed to say anything I don't actually believe.
I like it. (crew laughs) So there you go. Whether you like more cooling and dbrand's colors,
or whether you like Sony's colors, dbrand is still gonna get you for light strips.
That's right. Expensive electronics tape. You'll buy it and you'll like it.
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