Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) > Reviews (302)

I used to borrow my sisters Gameboy ages ago to play Tetris, but I’ve never really been a big games person. I like strategy games, such as Tetris, but that’s about it. I don’t own a Playstation, and Sim City 3000 is the only PC game I have!

So, it would surprise you if I mentioned that whilst in Singapore in April, I bought a PlayStation Portable! Why, you wonder!

I’ll explain……

Price:
I paid around £170 for the value pack PSP, region 1 with a UK power adapter

Looks:
This is the best bit…. The playstation portable looks fantastic. It’s sleek, black, shiny look is just incredible and is what you’d expect from Sony. The screen blends in with its surroundings, the buttons are in the right place…. It looks a quality piece of kit (you wouldn’t be reading this unless you’d already seen a picture of it).

However, the one bad thing about the PSP is the remote and headphones (which you only get in the value pack). They are white, and look a vain attempt to cash in on the white IPod scheme of things. As the PSP is black, it would have made better sense for Sony to have continued this theme!

Build quality:
Again, this isn’t some budget piece of equipment…. This is a Sony! Whilst I can’t comment on what it will look like after a year’s use, it’s still looking as fresh as the day I bought it. The buttons seem really substantial, and have no evidence of wanting to fall off at any point. The only thing I do have an issue with is the memory stick slot… It’s on a rubber hinge which doesn’t look like it will last the sands of time. However, everything else is perfect. I have, however, bought myself a Martin Shields screen protector (I use them on my smartphone and swear by them) off ebay for around £10…. It would be a good investment if you owned a PSP. After a months use, there were some slight scratches on the screen.

What you get in the box:
You get the following:
The PSP
Power Adapter and Plug
Instruction Book & Registration documents
32MB memory Stick Duo and full size adapter
Carry strap
Battery
** Carry case (a foam thing which stops it getting scratched)
** A simple remote control and headphones
*** A UMD Spiderman II Movie

Note:
** You only get these in the value pack
*** This was a special offer and you may get something different when the PSP is launched in the UK.

Features:
Well, this is the reason that I bought the PSP. Not only is it a fantastic portable games machine, it has a whole host of other features:

WiFi
MP3 and Atrac Player
MPEG4 Video player
Photo Viewer
IR and USB (2.0) ports
Memory Stick Duo slot
Games
UMD Video

I’ve attempted to take some pictures, below, of the various features….

MP3 Player:
I tend to use this feature the most, as it’s sometimes a bit difficult to concentrate on games playing on the 8.33 to London! The sound quality with the supplied headphones is more than good enough (but only when you have sourced some of those foam thingies to stick on them!). The PSP has various sound profiles you can select to make the experience even better (Pop, heavy, etc). When putting files on the memory stick (via the USB cable or with the memory stick in your PC), the PSP only recognises one folder down… You can’t have an artist folder with various albums in folders below this….

You can only have an artist folder. This is not really a problem, more of a bug bear. The one thing that is a problem is that the PSP only recognises Sony’s own group mode instead of the MP3 playlist function, although I:m sure there is a work around for this.

Video Player:
Well, using the free spiderman movie was easy… You just put the UMD disc in and off you go. However, getting movies that I already had was a sheer pain, but that’s only because Sony haven’t documented this. However, there are plenty of free ways to do this… Details are available here:
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000980​024404/

Anyway…. The experience: Well, nothing short of fantastic. The quality of the UMD is fantastic, and the screen is bright enough and big enough to watch two hours worth of video on a flight! The quality of any MP4 encoding you do yourself is up to you. I managed to get good quality video at a encoding rate of 2mb a minute. So, for an episode of Futurama (see below), a 20 minute episode came in at 40MB. Obviously, with a 512mb memory stick (around £35 off ebay) you can get a fair bit of video. The quality is smooth at even 25 frames a second!

Photo Viewer:
With some good quality pictures, the screen looks fantastic. It’s a good way of showing off your pictures, and you also have the ability to show off any pictures taken with a sony digital camera

Gaming:
I only have the one game, Wipeout Pure, which is fantastic. The quality is fantastic and very smooth, although there are a couple of moments where the frame rate drops when the going gets tough! There are plenty of titles available for the PSP, and I believe both Doom and Quake 3 are being ported over. I’m personally waiting for Grand Turismo 4 personally!

The controls for the gaming are good also. You have the normal play station layout, including both digital and analogue controls. I love the analogue controls…. The little push button feels fantastic!

Battery Life:
Well, not to your Gameboy levels, but more than long enough to get around 4 hours of mixed MP3 playback and gaming, although video playback reduces this.

Upgradeability:
As mentioned, the PSP has IR, WiFi and USB, with the USB port showing signs of things wanting to be bolted to it. I think it’s only a question of time before we have cameras and things being available for it. Video conferencing and GPS are the two killer apps I can think of!

WiFi:
Very easy top set up, and worked well with the Router I have here at home. However, it doesn’t like hotspots which don’t broadcast their SSID. There is only one game which uses the WiFi at the moment, Wipeout Pure, and I’ve successfully updated the game over the air.

There is probably loads more I can tell you about it, but I’m sure I’m limited with space! However, for the money, even with the purchase of a few memory sticks, this is a fantastic piece of kit…. Forget the IPod…. It’s yesterday’s news…. You’ll get more looks on the train with a PSP! Buy one…. You won’t be disappointed!