The PSP : It Will Do Anything For A Price

The PSP has finally hit North America a few months after its Japanese launch. Was the wait worth it? I would certainly say yes if you’re willing to shell out the money to buy one. The PSP certainly does everything that you would want from a media player/portable gaming machine. Perhaps not the best in all 3 components but it certainly does a good job at everything it intends to do. ‘The Sony PSP features a large 4.3-inch 16:9 widescreen LCD TFT screen with a 480×272 resolution, button layout similar to the PlayStation with a digital control pad, an analog stick, circle, square, triangle, x, and 2 shoulder buttons, USB 2.0 connectivity (via mini-USB), a Memory Stick Duo media slot, and 802.11b WiFi support.It uses Sony’s proprietary Universal Media Disc, which stores up to 1.8GB in a format reminiscent of MiniDiscs.’ If you’re one of the lucky 1 000 000 people who first buys this thingy, you also get a free UMD copy of Spiderman-2. Since I’m no Gizmodo or Engadget, I’ll quickly run through some pros and cons of this machine.

PROS: Beautiful LCD ScreenExcellent GamesThe ability to watch movies/listen to music/watch photosSnazzy Hip DesignUSB 2.0 SupportWi-Fi EnabledUMD Disk offers 1.8 GB of space

SO-SO: Relatively LightweightDecent Battery PowerMarketing campaign revolving teens

Cons: Some Dead Pixel IssuesSmudges or scratches easilyButton Configurations in weird placesThe PriceEject button a little shaky

With all of that being said, the PSP can do whatever you want it to for a specific price. You have the ability to watch downloaded movies or regular movies as well as listen to MP3s depending on how much extra you want to spend for a memory card. The bigger the memory card, the more you can store, the more it’s going to cost you. It all depends on what you as a consumer want to do with your PSP. If you’re simply into viewing some pictures on it you won’t care as much about the PSP’s memory stick but for movies/MP3s it will set you back a large additional amount of money.The good news is that if you’re willing to spend the dough, the PSP will deliver high quality music playback,video playback and of course some great games. There were a few issues when it came to the placement of buttons such as the headphone jack and ac adapter. I wish they were on top as being placed on the bottom caused some issues with my hands while I was testing out a game.

A few other neat features of future interest is that the device acts as both a usb device and wi-fi device with your computer which allows for games to be played with other PSP users as well as over the internet.The wi-fi also enables downloadable content such as game demos or added bonuses such as extra levels for games to be stored on the memory stick of the PSP. The biggest problem right now with the PSP is its price. It retails for 250 U.S and 300$ Canadian just for the device and included in a bundle pack i’ve seen it at 450$ Canadian. That’s not to mention the bigger memory stick you will need for movies/mp3s which will set you back an extra 100$. And let’s not forget the games themselves which are about 50$ a pop.And when the UMD movies start to come out, those will be another 50$ extra as well.The marketing campaign has been so-so so far for the PSP as it struggles to separate itself from a kiddy image to teens and adults alike. It’s fair to say that it has done a way better job at it then Nintendo but there’s still some adults out there who are a bit skeptical about being caught with one of them in their hands.The key to the PSP will come in the upcoming year as a price cut to the machine should help it compete with Nintendo and help to do a better job at making a profit off of the device. I would hold off buying one of these till the price cut is announced as right now it’s simply too expensive but if you have the disposable income to waste on one,I highly recommend you pick one up and enjoy it to the fullest extent.

Status: Recommended

Thanks to http://www.engadget.com/ for the PSP Hardware information.

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