A new PS5 model just dropped – but won't solve the console's biggest problem

techradar.com:

A lighter PS5 revision has just launched in Australia, shaving precious grams off of Sony's weighty flagship console.

The PS5 is a notoriously heavy bit of kit, but these latest revisions have trimmed some of the fat. The new PS5 disc version weighs in at 3.9kg, weighing in at 300g lighter than 2021's revised console. Meanwhile, the PS5 Digital Edition comes in at  3.4kg – that's 200g lighter than the previous digital revision.

After two hardware iterations in as many years, Sony has managed to scale down the weight of its beast of a box. If you have the PS5 launch model, your console weighs 4.5kg by comparison. The initial PS5 Digital Edition wasn't much lighter, at 3.9kg. Each model has had its weight cut by at least half a kilogram, which is pretty significant.

But what causes each revision of the PS5 to become lighter? 2021's revisions featured a smaller heatsink to bring the console's weight down ever so slightly. The tradeoff was that the console ran a little hotter as a result, which caused some speculation as to whether the revision performed worse than its predecessor. 

We expect this may also be the case with the latest revision. But there may also be changes to other internal components so as to not place as much of a burden on the heatsink.

We don't yet know how long it'll take for this latest PS5 revision to roll out globally. But the fact that it's only immediately available in Australia leads us to think that it won't solve the console's notorious scarcity.

While it's possible that using lighter or cheaper components could mean that Sony is able to manufacture more units, it's unlikely the difference will be all that significant. And there's a number of reasons for that.

The global semiconductor shortage is still