I think it's pretty clearly correct that it's a capable machine. As variable as the results of technical tests are, the fact is that the Series S is significantly outperforming any hardware that you can buy for the same price or below. For anyone outside the 4K market, it's a fine machine.
It's not a ResetEra machine, in general. The PS5 and Xbox Series X will outperform it, always. The PS5 Digital Edition is pretty clearly better value than the Series S, for anyone whose definition of value focuses on price/performance ratios. That still leaves the Series S as a great machine for kids, or as a secondary console for Microsoft exclusives and Game Pass, or for the many people for whom any higher-priced games console is out of financial reach.
It might well be that Microsoft have to spend a lot more time and effort communicating this more broadly. The Series S has pretty much a third of the graphical capability of the Series X. While its relative performance can't be simplified to just saying that it's a third as powerful, that's the kind of graphical difference it makes sense to expect to see. It's a difference that means that apart from the simplest of games, anything on Series S is going to have lower framerates and/or resolutions (and a lot of the negative perception seems to be from people who expected only lower resolutions, so that's a message that quite obviously needs a lot of work from Microsoft's side, and perhaps a drive to get developers to include matching framerate modes regardless of the cost in terms of resolution and effects).
It's not a ResetEra machine, in general. The PS5 and Xbox Series X will outperform it, always. The PS5 Digital Edition is pretty clearly better value than the Series S, for anyone whose definition of value focuses on price/performance ratios. That still leaves the Series S as a great machine for kids, or as a secondary console for Microsoft exclusives and Game Pass, or for the many people for whom any higher-priced games console is out of financial reach.
It might well be that Microsoft have to spend a lot more time and effort communicating this more broadly. The Series S has pretty much a third of the graphical capability of the Series X. While its relative performance can't be simplified to just saying that it's a third as powerful, that's the kind of graphical difference it makes sense to expect to see. It's a difference that means that apart from the simplest of games, anything on Series S is going to have lower framerates and/or resolutions (and a lot of the negative perception seems to be from people who expected only lower resolutions, so that's a message that quite obviously needs a lot of work from Microsoft's side, and perhaps a drive to get developers to include matching framerate modes regardless of the cost in terms of resolution and effects).