Not been on here for a long while - got some catching up to do...!
Not been on here for a long while - got some catching up to do...!
Member since:01.09.2004
Reviews:201
Members who trust:52
These days we are obsessed with making things smaller and lighter. Cars are getting smaller and lighter as each year passes, yet more and more of them are becoming harder to crash. They're littered with more technology than NASA to stop you from actually having an accident and then, if you are still imbecilic enough to ignore every flashing light, warning beep and automated braking system that is trying its damndest to stop you hitting that tree, the small and light body made from leaves and acrylic will simply fold and crumble around you until the car comes to a rest and you can merely step out of it, brush yourself down and wander into your appointment as if crashing was part of your everyday existence.
Take my sisters, for example. Last week they hit a patch of ice in their brand new Renault Clio, rolled over eighty three times, bounced over twelve scarecrows and came to rest in the middle of a field. The leaf-acrylic polymer of their car's body was shattered and lifeless, but the two of them simply walked away, shaken but not stirred.
Then there are mobile phones. As each gadget show passes we all wait with baited breath to see how small and light the latest Nokia is going to be and what funky toys it's got on it, and then Apple came along with their hybrid love match between mobile phone and iPod and the whole world wet its pants. Small and light and yet packed with so much voodoo that the screen actually adjusts to be the right way up regardless of how you're holding the phone, it is the must-have accessory of the decade.
It's even the same with women. Oh yes, sure, we all know that Sophie Dahl is a plus-sized model and there is a weird little group of men who wouldn't mind throwing some Talcum Powder down so that they can have a bit of a fumble with her but, in reality, jean manufacturers know that all
women want to be a size zero so they make drainpipe trousers with waists so slim a three-year old girl's eyes would be forced to bulge if she tried to get in to them. By the time men have got a few pints inside them they've turned every girl in the bar into something more beautiful than Jennifer Aniston and slimmer than Kate Moss. You rarely, other than on some very weird websites, see a porn actress larger than a size ten....
But is slim and light really right for everything? Sony seem to think so, having released the Slim+Lite Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable). Replacing the original model, the new version is marginally slimmer but a whopping 91 grams lighter than its predecessor. That is a weight difference you can feel.
Despite this plastic liposuction, however, Sony have managed to keep all the features of the PSP in place. Whilst it is apparently 19% thinner than the previous version, all other dimensions remain the same and this allows the toy to continue to have a control feature very familiar to all users of the original PlayStation or its successors. To the left are the arrow keys for movement, to the right are the function keys (the circle, triangle, square and cross) that allow different commands, punches, braking, accelerating and so on, depending on the game you are playing, to be operated. On the top remain the L1 and R1 buttons for extra-special moves and operations. The screen size and resolution remains the same, as does the audio speaker, meaning that the overall functionality, response and general feel of the PSP remains the same.
In order to cope with this diet, several sacrifices have had to be made. Whilst Naomi Campbell's slight 34-23-34 frame might have all the features needed to make a grown man weak at the knees, the 33% reduction in weight on the slim PSP has come at the cost of its quality feel. The new PSP feels more plastic and cheaper than the earlier model and the hatch for loading the UMD discs now pops open like a substandard Takomi CD player. The earlier model had a nifty release switch that popped open the cover and slid the discs out; this model simply asks you to lay the disc in the right way up and clip the cover shut over it.
The battery had to be reduced by almost a third in order to obtain the thinner appearance but, thanks to advances in Lithium technology, it still manages to return the same amount of life as the earlier version.
Another loss in order to reduce weight was the removal of the earlier model's metal chassis. To me, this gave the device a chunky and weighty feel that was pleasant to hold. It also acted to reduce damage in the sudden event of the console being dropped, something that happens a lot if it's being used by a seven-year-old. The new version feels lighter than Barbie in your hand and, should said seven-year-old take to smashing his four-year-old brother's head in with the slimmer PSP, you know it will simply shatter and crumble like a Renault.
In updating the PSP, Sony set about addressing the faults of the earlier model. The most prominent one was the load time achieved for each game. As all Sony consoles rely on disc technology to run their games, load times can suffer while the machine scans the disc for the next relevant part of the game. The older PSP can be heard whirring and chunking as it works its way across the Universal Media Disc in desperate search for the next scenario and Sony doubled the internal memory on the new model from 32mb to 64mb to help increase load times.
Unfortunately, it hasn't worked. Like a supermodel looking for the next fix of her coke habit, it still takes just as long for the new version to work out where it needs to be as it did with the old one. Load a copy of Worms: Open Warfare 2 in to both versions and it will take just as long for the new one to reach the first menu options as the original model.
The Infrared port was removed in order to lose weight but, like my old Timex Datawatch, that piece of technology has long been redundant and it was amazing it was ever included in the first place. The serial port was changed for a smaller version and the LCD screen is thinner and lighter.
But, at the end of the day, it isn't really any better. Like prostitutes, the thinner they are the more expensive they are and the PSP Slim+Lite is no exception. It might look skinnier, anaemic jellyfish might actually be able to lift this new version because of its lighter weight, but it still does the same job as the fatter, older model, only for a bit more money. PSP Slim+Lites are coming in at anywhere between £129.99 and £159.99 dependent upon retailer and package.
The PSP still remains one of the best handheld games consoles on the market, whether you have the older model or the newer one. Personally, I prefer the weight of the older one in my hand whilst my seven-year-old likes to run around with his lighter version but, at the end of the day, we can still wirelessly hook up and blow each other to smithereens in real time because the Wi-Fi features on both are the same. All PSP versions come with full Wi-Fi connectivity, the ability to communicate with each other directly and the ability to hook-up to any nearby Wi-Fi hotspot and then beat the living crap out of competitors all over the world.
And the beauty is, I can sit in my armchair at one in the morning with a beer and a packet of crisps and get fat while I do it.
Is slimmer and lighter better? In some things yes, in others no. Just imagine the uproar if manufacturers in the sex industry started making certain of their products slimmer and lighter. That's one area where growth will never be complained about...
The PSP (PlayStation Portable) is a personal entertainment system unlike any other. No ... more
matter where you go or what you're doing with the PSP your games music videos and photos are always within arm&rsquos reach. You&rsquoll never battle boredom again!T...
Advantages: compact, MP3 & MP4 playback, huge variety of games, lightweight Disadvantages: sound could be a little louder - can be hard to hear if used in crowded environment
Jan 20th, 2008
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