XBox

Series X, Series S and the Xbox One family:

the Series X is the full-power machine, in black with an Ultra HD Blu-ray drive or in white as a digital edition without one. The Series S is the small one: no drive, less storage and a picture aimed at an ordinary Full HD or mid-range television. Both run the same games, and nearly every Xbox One game plays on either. The older One, One S and One X still make a cheap second console for a bedroom, though new releases have moved on without them. Anyone still weighing Microsoft against Sony will find PlayStation next door, Nintendo has the true handhelds, and since Xbox has no headset of its own, virtual reality means another platform.

A disc drive or downloads, depending on the internet at home:

a digital-only Xbox fetches every game over the connection, and big releases run to tens of gigabytes. On fibre in Costa del Este that is an evening’s wait. On the slower lines still common in parts of Darién or Bocas del Toro it can take days, and every reinstall starts again. There the disc Series X earns its keep: the game installs from the disc with a patch on top, and second-hand discs cost less and can be sold on once you finish them. The Series S suits a good connection, a player who sticks to a few games or a subscription library, and a shelf with no room for a tower. Budget for an expansion card with it, because the internal storage fills after a handful of large games.

A used Series X against a new Series S:

Microsoft has raised console prices several times, so even the cheapest new Series console costs over $500 in Panama, while a used Series X with a controller changes hands for around $450 to $500. For most players the used tower is the better buy: more storage, a disc drive, more power and the same games. A clean, boxed one whose drive reads every disc sits at the top of that band; a noisy drive or a missing controller pulls it to the bottom.

Power supplies, disc drives and controllers on a second-hand Xbox:

blackouts and voltage swings are a common complaint in Panama, and both Series consoles keep their power supply inside the case, where a surge does its damage out of sight. Ask whether the console ran behind a voltage regulator or a UPS, then play something demanding for a while: random shutdowns, or a console that will not wake from standby, point at the power supply. On a Series X, load a disc, eject it and load another; grinding, or a disc the console does not recognise, means a tired drive. An original Xbox One runs off an external power brick whose light should glow steady white or orange; no light, or a flicker, means the brick is failing. Open each controller’s battery door and look for corrosion on the contacts. A genuine Series controller has a USB-C port and a pairing button and connects to the console with no adapter, so one that needs a USB receiver plugged in is not a Microsoft pad.

An Xbox handed over signed out and wiped:

if the console is set as your home Xbox, switch that off first, then open console info in the system settings and choose to reset and remove everything; nothing needs taking apart. Remove it from the devices list on your Microsoft account too, so it stops showing as yours. Digital games stay with your account, so list what goes in the bag: console, power cable, controllers, any expansion card and the discs. Photograph the label on the base with the model and say whether it lived behind a regulator. Someone driving in from Las Tablas or Boquete for a Series X will want to watch a disc load and a game run, so meet where there is a television and bring a game they can try.