brett_day's Full Review: Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) Console
INTRO
I have not played on a Playstation since i left the wonderful shores of England. I have been thinking about buying a PS2 for while but then comes along the PSP and i knew i just had to have one! So after looking for a month to try and find one of these in Oklahoma City, i finally purchased the shiny new PSP!
COULDN"T WAIT TO GET HOME!!
I got home and was so excited about my new purchase, i took it out of the box installed the ion lithium battery and 32mb memory card connected the power cords and powered this beast up, only to find that my screen has dozens of white dots everywhere!! What the heck!?! I went online and found out that a ton of PSP had defective screens. The Screen had pixels missing everywhere, ugly white blotches. I went back to the store where I got my PSP from and exchanged it for another and checked the screen in the store to make sure that this unit was not defective as well. I would strongly suggest that you ask to inspect then screen before you make your purchase! Relieved that i had found another PSP I headed back home.
LETS SEE WHATS IN THE BOX
Well this depends on what package you decide to buy. There are so many bundles to choose from now. I decided to buy just the regular value pack. If you are lucky enough to still find one of the 1st million PSP units made then you will get a copy of Spiderman 2 (yes its the full movie) you will also get a demo disk, but none of the games are playable, still the games are fun to watch none the less, Instruction books and quick start guides are as you would expect (who reads them anyway). You also get a 32mb memory stick pro duo, an ion lithium battery a pair of headphones (with remote control) and a lanyard. Why Sony would include a white Lanyard and White headphones with a shiny black PSP are beyond me, anyway!
The PSP itself is a very shiny black which looks stunning. The Dimensions of the unit are approximately
(WxDxH): 6.7 in x 2.91 in x 0.91 in. It really is not very big at all, in fact it is the perfect size! It fits in your hands very well indeed. The screen is huge! It is a 4.3" 16:9 widescreen TFT LCD which displays very, very crisp pictures, in fact the picture quality will blow you away! A total of 16.77 million colors can be displayed at a resolution of 480x272, believe me you will not be disappointed with the picture quality!
There are a few connections on the PSP. There is USB connection on top of the unit so you can connect the PSP to your home computer. There is a headphone 3.5mm headphone jack on the left underside of the unit and a power connection on the right underside of the body. On the Left hand side of the body is the slot for your memory card. Also on the top of the unit are 2 screw holes so you can attach screen protectors (more on that later) On the back of the unit is the cd drive. The UMD drive door pops outwards from the body when you press the eject button.
3.2.1 PLAYTIME!!
When you first turn on the unit you will be prompted to enter the current time and date, which is very easy to do. Once you have done that you will be presented with the main system menu. The menu system is very easy to navigate around. There are 5 icons to choose from. Video Settings, Photo, Music, Video, and Game. You highlight the menu you want by using the d pad, Once highlighted sub menus will appear. All are very self explanatory, the ease of use is a nice change compared to some technology today.
I wanted to see how well movies played on this unit, so i popped in Spiderman 2. The UMD are very similar to the Sony Minidisk. The UMD's can hold 1.8gb of data. The PSP operates very quietly and loads fairly quickly. Spiderman 2 loaded and started playing and i could not believe my eyes! I was totally amazed. Playback was seamless! There was no lag, or slowdown, no blurred images, the playback was silky smooth. The Picture quality was quite simply stunning, just like watching a DVD on a regular TV. The PSP's sound reproduction can be somewhat tiny, which can take away from the movie or game that you might be playing, but plug in the headphones and you will not be disappointed.
I also purchased Ridge Racer with my PSP. I will not go into the details of the game here i will write a separate review for that, but i will go onto say that the game is awesome, and the PSP takes it all in its stride! A phenomenal frame rate will give you glitch free playing! it is a pure dream to play games on this system. All of the controls fall into place nicely. I actually prefer the d-pad to the thumb stick, each to their own i guess. You also have the well known Playstation button layout on the right hand side of the unit Triangle, Square, circle and Cross. The volume control is on the bottom of the screen as is the brightness control. All are very easily accessed even while playing! The PSP also has a built in Wireless B router. This means you can play against other PSP that are in your local area through Wi-Fi!! This is a very cool feature!
The battery that comes with the PSP is very good. Gone are the days where you need to buy 6 batteries to get an hours worth of play! the Ion Lithium battery takes about 2 hours to get a full charge! When fully charged the batter will last for about 4 hours of game play 4 hours of movies or about 6 hours if all you are doing is listening to MP3's. This is great, and will save you a bunch of money on batteries!
WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
Not only does the PSP play movies and games, it also doubles up as a MP3 player and a picture viewer. This is where the USB connection comes into play. You connect the PSP to your computer and you can transfer MP3's and pictures to your PSP. It is very easy to do this. When connected to the computer the PSP is recognized as a mass storage device. Select the USB option from the menu, and your ready to start transferring. Just select the file you want to copy across and away you go.
MP3 playback is fairly good, you can't complain, it's no IPOD but it is still good. Depending on what size memory card you have you can load dozens of songs onto your PSP and then you will have a portable MP3 Player. I also brought a FM transmitter. If you plug the FM transmitter into the PSP you can listen to your music through your car stereo or any stereo. The fact that the PSP can also play movies is also cool, now have a DVD system in my car that i can listen to through my subs and amps!
There is one more important thing to talk about with the PSP. While the screen in terms of picture quality is outstanding, the durability of the screen is questionable! The screen is very easily scratched. There are a number of products on the market for you to buy. These range from little bits of film that cover your screen, to a full blown screen protector that screws onto the PSP unit, either way is fine! I strongly advise anyone buying a PSP to take this into account. Neither option is very expensive, but each option is a very worthwhile investment.
FINAL THOUGHTS
My final thoughts on the Sony PSP. The PSP is quite simply awesome. It is by far the best handheld to ever grace Gods green earth. It is a superb gaming platform, but in addition to that a great MP3 Player, picture viewer and DVD player! A true multi media device! What more could you ask for. There is a going to be a very strong games library for years to come, you cannot go wrong with the PSP. While kind of pricey at $249, it is a great investment, that if looked after, will last a very long time! This is the way gaming should be!
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