Well, even if the sticker on your TEST says it’s a debugging unit, it’s more for testing than real debugging. Sony has a long history since PS1 of calling their development testing devices “debugging unit” but they aren’t really. If you are developing games for PS3 you will get another device named TOOL, these TOOL units got double RAM which is needed to run the debugging agent properly and a control panel to manage the device. There are two of these TOOL devices these days, the cheap DECR-1400 and the older DECR-1000 devices. The 1000 are the better ones if you are into hacking, the 1400 is a “cheaper” version now sold to dvelopers by Sony. They look completly like TEST phat units but have 2 network connector ports and TOOL written on the front.

There is also a third type, the Prototypes. These were PS3 units send to press and studios before the PS3 was offically released. They are basicly the same as Ps3 TEST units. The biggest difference is the transluscent plastic used for the case and the sticker on the back telling that it is a proto unit. A picture of that sticker can be seen below. The Type Number is DEH-H1000AS-E or DEH-H1000AS-ES. The only difference is that ES units don’t have TEST written on front. I still assume that these were used for shows or something. Technical, they are identical.