I think your Xbone is broken... never had any of those problems. Might try doing a hard reset (hold down power button until it powers down completely and then unplug power for 10 seconds or so), but if you still have problems like any of the ones you described I would send a support ticket into Microsoft.

Maybe. I've been having annoyances with it out of the box. I'll double click the Guide, and sometimes it will come up, sometimes it opens the dash (automatically wiping my recorded clip for some reason), sometimes there will be a long delay before the menu finally pops up, and sometimes it just wont do anything at all. Also, I can't play the Master Chief Collection unless the controller is connected through USB, but since it's only that game, it might be an issue with the MCC itself.

Other than that, the games that I try to play have a habit of simply crashing, or bugging out, but maybe that's just the games (through sheer coincidence) and not the console... But who knows...

As far as the DVR recording more than 30 seconds, that is my one major complaint about the Game DVR compared to the PS4's. You have to snap the Game DVR app and then choose "capture previous x minutes." Meaning you double tap the xbox button, hit up on the stick and then choose Game DVR. The one thing I'm hoping for is there are rumors that they are going to increase it to 30 minutes in the future so you don't have to worry about doing it quickly if you want to catch something fast (or if you want to capture a whole multiplayer match for example).

Thirty minutes seems a bit excessive for gameplay captures, especially when you take into account that each capture is automatically uploaded, whether you want the clip or not. That's some serious bandwidth. It would be better if you could assign a default clip length. I tried trimming a clip through the Upload app, and the video quality got butchered. I dunno, I guess I've just been spoiled, but how hard is it for them to let you set the default at one minute?

I normally wouldn't give them any credit at all, but I do know there is supposed to be an update to the live TV functionality of the XB1, so an increased buffer size for the DVR would make sense.

I've heard of an upgrade to the DVR capabilities (of course they gotta appeal to that Shports and TV crowd), and I really hope capturing benefits from that, because it's way more complicated than it needs to be right now (and to think that I scoffed at the "Share" button on the DS4 when they revealed it)...

And for how I personally use the XB1: the Kinect. It's actually awesome with the XB1 and I love it. It annoys me when an XB1 I'm using doesn't have it. And they of course designed the interface to use the Kinect because it used to be required to at least get one when you bought the XB1.

That is a darn shame, friend. Unless they come out with a Kinect 3.0 that's cheaper than the current one AND doubles as a home security system, I'm not going to waste my money just because MS worked hard to make things inconvenient without it (I remember at the LANboree when I found out that you couldn't record a gameplay clip without Kinect. The sheer stupidity of it gave me a headache)...

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Oh sweet, I missed the announcement yesterday apparently. I've been looking forward to that feature.

Also dedicated servers for party chat are rolling out with this update. That's been sorely needed for a while.

They really should have stuck to their guns on Kinect. Just the fact that not all Xbone users have a Kinect will stop deva from utilising it, making it useless (outside of talking to your tv sometimes), which will make less people want one. It's a vicious cycle, but MS have no one to blame but themselves.

Sorry to tell you, but the voice commands are what make the system what it is. I find myself yelling "Xbox, record that" at my PS4 all the damn time. Other frequent commands in my house:

Xbox Watch TV
Xbox Watch Comedy Central
Xbox Pause
Xbox Play
Xbox go to Netflix

As someone who doesn't watch TV (nor would purchase a gaming system for the purposes of watching TV), this doesn't sell me on the Kinect, really. Especially if this is what "makes the system", then it's a crappy system for a person who just wants to game.
As for yelling at the tv to record something, I honestly don't see how that's easier than clicking the Share button that your finger is beside, hitting square, then going back to what you were doing. But 90% of my gaming is done in total silence, so randomly blurting out commands is kind of jarring for me, and might not be for you.

And the new update added voice messaging! Now I can tell my TV to tell my friends hi for me!

That's neat. I'm sure people will get some use out of it, but... why doesn't this work through headsets? Why does it NEED Kinect to work?

Also, the kinect voice commands are so easy my technology impaired wife can use it. She actually gets mad when using the other TV that the PS4 is connected to because she can't just talk to it.

That's the thing. PS4 does have voice commands, and you don't even need the camera to use them. Having the headset plugged in is enough to grant you full access to all of the voice command features. And even then, I never use them. I just don't see how talking to the console is any better than touching a couple of buttons real quick. But again, since I don't use the console for TV, I usually never have the controller out of my hands...

The funny thing is that when I was first messing with the Xbone, I plugged in the headset and tried giving it commands to test them out; but nope, you NEEEEEED to have the Kinect, since it holds audio prompts hostage the way it used to do for video clips.

It's GREAT. It gives me those warm "I live in the future" fuzzies.

Buy the Kinect. You will not regret it.

We bough the Kinect late in the 360's life cycle, and we still regretted it. If the only incentive is TV and slightly-more-competent recording features, then no thanks. Keeping features locked behind it for the sake of making you want it is the exact thing that I stated that I hated earlier. It's marketing ploys like that that make me NOT want to ever buy it.

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Also your xbox issues sound like you need a hard reboot, and if they persist, you may need a new xbox. Ain't none of that mess normal, yo.

I did a Hard reboot, but haven't actually gotten around to checking if it worked, but I'm hopeful.

Edit: I just tested it, and yep, the audio thing was fixed for now (and I was able to catch Destiny giving me a Canary even before I could hit the start button on the menu, lol).
Also took some earlier advice and pinned the DVR thing to record longer. Much less of a hassle than before, so that's something.