Stronger, stiffer, nicer looking, lighter tubes, a lot lighter actually which was a problem with the old one, it either needed more travel or a lighter frame, now they've sorted one of those problems out it is now a light cross country/trail bike. The lower shock mount is a lot neater and shields the shock a bit more. It has a very long head tube with internal bearings. Those are the main differences that I can think of but I think Giant left the rest of it alone, it is a great design so they didn't need to change much to make it much better.:thumbsup: