As my four children wrote their letters to Santa (well three really, the eldest just told us what he wanted), top of their lists were Gameboy Advance (GBA) SPs. Which is strange really, as they already possessed ordinary GBAs, which were working perfectly well, but as with their Mum, they absolutely needed the newest version of their favourite technology. Anyhow, fast forward to Christmas day, and to their delight Santa had managed to secure one for each of them, all in different colours.

The Evolution Of The Gameboy Advance SP
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When the first incarnation of the Gameboy hit the shelves way back in 1989, it was a brick of a machine measuring 90mm x 148mm x 32mm and weighed a massive 300g. Yet, those of us that bought it (or dreamed about buying it), thought it was the best thing since the Atari. We could barely imagine how they managed to create a console that let us play games on the move. Believe it or not, I still possess one of the original Gameboys and ten years on its still working perfectly and I play Super MarioLand, on its Dot Matrix LCD screen that boasts 14 shades of grey.

In 1998 Nintendo decided to spruce up the Gameboy's image and to this end they not only shrunk it in size to 75mm x 27mm x 133mm, and a much lighter 138g, but they added an impressive upto 56 simultaneous on-screen colours.

In 2001 the third incarnation arose, the Gameboy Advance. And this truly brought a new experience to handheld gaming, boasting a 32 bit CPU, and upto a massive 32,768 colours on-screen, we now had gameplay to rival the playstation, only in a handheld console. But the real killer, was the capability of the GBA to play the games designed for the previous versions, so all those precious Tetris and Super Mario games would still work.

The fourth and final incarnation arrived in 2003, in the form of the GBA SP. Smaller, sleeker and generally better looking, it boasts almost the same specifications of the GBA, with a few improvements.

In The Box
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So you've paid your money, what do you get?

Well you have a very cute little silver (unless its a special edition) box with pretty pictures of your GBA SP on it, in the colour of your choice. Inside the box you will then find the following :

* The GBA SP console.
* A Mains charger
* Several instruction leaflets, including one warning about epilepsy.

Now, the first thing we need to do is charge the GBA SP's battery, so plug it in and wait three hours, and I'll tell you about the consoles specifications.

The Specifications
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The GBA SP boasts the following impressive list of specifications:

* CPU - 32 bit ARM with imbedded memory
* Memory - 32 Kbyte + 96 Kbyte VRAM (in CPU), 256 Kbyte WRAM (external of CPU)

I'm sure these mean something to someone, but not to me I'm afraid.

* Screen - 2.9” TFT screen with integrated screen light.
* Resolution - 240x160
* Screen size - 40.8mm x 61.2mm
* Colours - 32,768 possible colours. (511 simultaneous colours in character mode)

Now these do mean something to me, it means there is a fairly large, good definition screen with lots of colours.

* Power - Built in Lithium Ion battery
* Battery Life - 10 hours continual gameplay (18 hours without light), 3 hours charge.

Finally, a handheld that doesn't eat batteries for a living. Simply charge it for the three hours and the battery will last for up to two days of play.

The Styling
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What can I say, the gameboy has come a long way in 14 years. Measuring in at a tiny 82mm x 84.6mm x 24.3mm when closed and weighing 143g, the GBA SP fits in your hand or pocket perfectly. When you flip the lid open, your are confronted with a very reasonably sized screen. And even better it's available in an ever increasing range of colours and special editions.

What, you want to know what colours are available. Well here goes :

For the girl's among us there is a very nice pink version. There are two blue versions available, one deep blue, and the other a nice light metallic Arctic Blue. For those that want their console to stand out there is flame red. And for those who want a more subdued look there are black and silver.

Then we have the special edition versions : The tribal version is silver with tattoos, while for the Zelda fan there is a gold Zelda Minish Cap version. Not leaving the mario fans out, there is a red Mario edition, and finally for us oldies there is a NES classic edition.

These are of course only the versions available at the time of writing, I'm sure more will become available with time.

So What's It Like To Play?
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It plays like a dream. The built in light means that you no longer need to sit in a brightly lit room, or have one of those silly light accessories to play. Even in a dark room there is no problem seeing the screen. If you've used a GBA before you might find the back buttons a little awkward to begin with, but as they say practise makes perfect. Of course there is no actual improvement in the internal workings of the console of the GBA, but somehow the games do look better when they are lit up.

The truth about battery life
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So you've read the spiel about upto 10 hours continuous play, a quick word of warning, if you have accessories attached such as the wireless link, battery time goes down drastically, maybe by as much as half.

Any Gripes
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Well yes, I have one. My children are used to being able to use their personal stereo headphones with the GBA, but the Sp does not accept a standard jack. You have to buy a special adaptor, to use headphones. Not a great gripe, but still what were Nintendo thinking except more money.

What Games Are Available?
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There is a huge library of games available, consisting of hundreds if not thousands of titles. As you can play games originally released for the gameboy and gameboy colour, you can even play the original Tetris. A word of warning though, gameboy/colour games will stick out of the slot somewhat and make the overall look of the console a bit silly.

A few of the games my children possess are :

* Pokemon - in its many versions, IE. red, blue, silver, ruby, fire red etc.
* Tony Hawks Underground
* Crash Nitro Kart
* Green Eggs and Ham
* Spyro

The list goes on and on, there is literally a game out there for everybody.

Available Accessories
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There are a multitude of accessories available which include :

* Carry Cases
* In Car Adapters
* Link Cables (for linking to games together for multiplayer action)
* Wireless Link Adapters (as above)
* Replacement Batteries
* Headphone Adapters

Console Only Or Bundle
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My recommendation would be to buy this in a bundle with accessories included. Just make sure you don't buy one that includes games you already own.

Price And Availability
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The price of the console has been recently reduced to £69.99, which is considerably less than I paid for my original gameboy (I feel cheated now). However by shopping around, you can find some excellent bundle deals, for example ToysRus have a GBA SP with six games and a travel pack for under £130, which is extremely good value, especially if you consider that this time last year, the console itself would have set you back £100.

Final Words
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I was a bit dubious about buying these for my children, but they love them. And I must admit, on the rare occasions they've let me have a go, I've seen a big improvement from the original GBA. Of course a console like this is only as good as the games available, but with such a huge range with prices starting from £4.99 I can't see it ever losing it's appeal. Saying that, the Nintendo DS is on the horizon, which boasts even better capabilities with the backwards compatibility, what is techno-freak to do?

Ok, decision made, this is a great console, at a great price, go and buy it now you won't regret it. If it's as durable as my original gameboy, you'll be paying the grand total of £7 per year of use.