Which 360 design to buy?

Teslacuted

Hi guys, I bought a 360 in Xtravision, manufactured August 2008 with the intention of flashing it, turned out it had one of the newer drives which haven't been worked out yet but ontop of that it started failing with these types of errors:

Picture
Official forum thread

I've just gotten my refund from Xtravision, which took about 3 weeks, arrived as a cheque in the post and they insisted I register with microsoft and have them issue me a reference number before they'd take it back - I'd advise against dealing with them again.

Anyhoo - I've been trying to find somewhere that would stock the 'best' 360 revision for my needs, i.e. one with the redesigned chipsets (65nm) and HDMI but without the new drives.

I bought a 360 in Tesco to find a manufacture date of late 2006 on it, so it'll have a flashable drive but not the updated design. I wanted to ask the resident experts whether it's worth keeping?

My Pros:

• Flashable Drive

Cons:

• No HDMI
• Draws 50% more power
• Is more likely to fail

My biggest worry is that it'll RROD fairly quickly, and if I were to make a warranty claim I'd end up being shipped a new drive/mobo which is not what I want. However; I've given a pretty tight timeline of consoles that are acceptable to me, so I may not be able to do any better.

Any input is appreciated,
thanks.

Edit: Meant to ask, if it were to fail (My luck dictates it must), how successful are the 3rd party repairs I've heard about, the Xclamp and such?

weeder

consoles before april 08 have flashable drives afaik