At first glance, it may appear that the PS4's user interface shares little in common with the PlayStation 3's "XrossMediaBar" interface, a familiar sight for owners of Sony's 2006-era televisions.

The PS4 is Sony's most attractively designed piece of hardware. It's a beautiful system, with a sharp, slightly angled profile accented by a light bar that acts as a console status indicator.

Using Rest Mode keeps the system ready to quickly come back online, and allows some background functions, but it saves power by keeping the screen dark and shutting down most tasks. Turning a PS4 ...