http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=3296
I'd call half as loud a lot quieter.. I can only speak from experience.. but I found the Original 60Gb way too noisy... ramping up in fan noise after a few minutes use was intolerable.
that 80 GB i got to test was a little better, but still kinda noisy after half hour or so.
The Slim, is for me, quieter at start up, quieter when playing movies - as quiet as my BD player (and faster to load). The heat coming out the back of the player is about half what was being pumped out of the 60GB I had.
Obviously It's all subjective, some people are more sensitive to fan nouse than others, I personally cannot abide it, and have a very very sensitive ear for it. I cannot have even a humdifier running at night or it will keep me awake.
I'm very happy with the Slim, and I like that it can stream native DTS-HD MA and Dolby TrueHD, thereby allowing my reciever to utilise its Audessy (spelling) processing which gets bypassed by the amp if I'm using PCM like the Fat models send.
Any Fat (old) model you buy wont have a warranty too.. so thats something to think about.
