I got accepted into the preview program for the update to Xbox Live coming August 11th. In other words, I have the update and these are my impressions;

Now this isn't as big of an update as NXE, naturally, but I am still glad to see how things have changed. First thing I noticed was the welcome screen being re-activated, which I immediately deactivated again using the settings. I then checked my profile, which has a nice golden logo with the number 3 on it, signifying that I have been a Gold member for 3 years. Achievement lists have also changed, so now the achievements are listed like they are in your game library (grids with 8 achievements per line). There's a help section next to the system settings for people who are clueless. You can rate all your games in your game library and content on the Marketplace on a five-star scale. All of these are welcomed changes, but aren't that extreme.

The avatar editor has been changed a lot, and includes an avatar marketplace and a Props section for your avatar. You enter the marketplace and can buy items based on games and even brands. The pricing is a bit steep... Each T-shirt seems to be 80 points, which is alright I guess, but the Halo 3 RC Warthog prop is 320 points, which is pretty steep. I didn't find anything awesome enough to warrant a purchase, but there is definitely the possibilities of a plethora of cool props and items that will make your avatar stand out much more than earlier. There are also Awards, which are awarded to the player by games. I hear Splosion Man is the first to do this, but I have no idea how since the game never mentions it, but from what I hear the main purpose of awards is to award the player avatar items for achievements and whatnot. Very interesting for a completionist like me who loves achievements and pimping avatars.

You can also sort your friends list. You could for example sort by name instead of activity, but there really isn't anything that replaces the default sorting as the most practical one. I would prefer it if they had a Top Friends feature where some friends always appear first, but that's not in here.

This is all great, but what I love the most is the improved speed. A lot of people have had issues with slow marketplaces, and I'm one of those. I would wait minutes for the list of items to appear (if I were to buy two items from one game, I would wait a minute for the items for that game to appear, then another minute because it reloads the items after downloading before I can download the second item), but now it is much faster. Great!

The update is cool and improves on an already kicking Xbox Live experience, but it's still in its grassroots stage, and I am excited to see how they will flesh it out with avatar items and awards. You can still sign up using the link above, so give it a try while you can or just wait for the 11th.