Summary

This is the best portable system out. There's so much to do with it. You can watch movies, listen to music, view pictures, and play games.

Sound

Through the PSP's speakers it's kinda quiet but that's why you can plug in head phones. Music sounds great through headphones though.

Gameplay

Great! It's alomost like a portable PS2.

Summary

When the Nintendo DS came out I almost bought it, I am glad I waited a little longer and saved my money for the PSP instead. This machine is the most remarkable piece of technology I have ever owned. It is partly due to the sheer beauty of the machine and its well thought out design. The screen is bigger than expected and extremely vivid with its color use. More than one person has commented on the clear shoulder buttons, and that black lacquer finish is visually pleasing to men and women both it seems. Using a disk media is also a plus, as the games so far all seem to load well and have plenty of meat to them. The 1.8 gig size allows for good sized games. When games are loading you can feel the drive spinning up in your hand, there’s an odd comfort in it that I can’t put my finger on. I see that they have socket-like holes on the bottom of the machine for future add-ons like skins and the like I’m guessing. The machine is a little heavy, but this is expected because of so much is crammed into it. Honestly, I can’t see how they got a disk drive, a big beautiful screen, controls, processors and all that mess into such a small package. You would think that having all that in such cramped conditions would lead to overheating….nope. I have left the machine on all day long playing lengthy games such as Untold Legends or Twisted Metal, playing 6 to 10 hours at a stretch and experienced nothing but gaming goodness. The control layout is good, but a little messed up. If they could do anything different I bet Sony would choose to reverse the analog stick and the D-pad positions. You see, the analog stick sits very low, causing you to hold the PSP a little odd. When you first start playing a game you start by holding the PSP like a regular controller, but after a while find that you have to adjust your left hand a little lower. Otherwise you suffer thumb cramping and ligament stress, not earth shattering, but after 6 hours you are dying. Fortunately most developers know this already and have given us options to use the D-pad as well. Racing games are where you suffer the most since you find yourself generally applying more pressure than is actually needed because of adrenaline, it’s good that the games are great enough to make one loose yourself in the moment, but thumb cramping sucks. This is where the DS could potentially overshadow the PSP a little, I’ve tried the DS stylus with Metroid and was awed by its near mouse-like control. Movies I’ve watched on the system are Resident Evil, and Hellboy. Both are perfect recordings with no dvd like frills or added anything, this is sad sorta, I guess the small format is completely used just for the movie with no room to spare. The only technical difficulties I have ever had so far have been with movies, the machine locked up once in the middle of the Resident Evil movie. If this happens the only thing to do is reboot and you are back in business, this only happened once. The Resident Evil movie is terrible by the way, terribly boring, terribly stupid acting and poor scripting make for a real piece of poodoo in my opinion. One negative for sure is the placement of the power button. The damned thing sits right in the palm of your right hand, and more than once the PSP just shut off mysteriously….until I figured out that my own hand at times (usually in the heat of battle) was pushing the damned button, which is actually a slide, up to the off/pause position. See, if you slide the power switch up once it turns on the machine, it is spring loaded and pops back down immediately. If you hold the slide up again for 3 seconds it will shut the machine down, if you slide it up quickly and release, it puts the machine into sleepy mode. The problem is that at times you are so engaged in the game that you grip the machine a little overbearingly and unintentionally hold the power slide up if the game calls for a lot of face button use. This has burned me a few times when I had a good TM game rolling along. I love this machine though, and I am extremely glad I purchased it, some people have reviewed this machine and said it is delicate and fragile…I doubt that. The PSP feels solid and sturdy to me. I have taken the thing around with me everywhere in my backpack and still toss my bag around like normal without care really. The glasses case that comes with the PSP is a blessing too, it insures safety to some degree, and the wipe cloth works well, use it, use nothing else or potentially scratch the finish. Haven’t downloaded music to it yet, but a friend at work that has one as well showed me how it’s done and I listened to his 500 mb flash card full of music and was impressed, it’s nice to be able to shut the screen off when only jamming to tunes. If any other complaints could be said, it would have to be about the movie viewings controls, they take some getting used to and a few times I found myself accidentally back at the title screen instead of pausing it like I wanted to, I am sure it’s user error in not following playback control directions. But it still feels a little clunky even after figuring it out to some degree. I would highly recommend getting this machine, even if gaming is not your thing, this machine blows portable DVD machines away in terms of visual clarity, size, and even battery life. I have explored all avenues of portable DVD use and have found it lacking until now. Now, if they would just hurry up and release movies and music videos for the thing…and keep the price low on these things. Everyone I have ever showed it to (and it’s a lot of people) have immediately said “I gotta have that”. Joy is a PSP, truly.

Sound

The sound on all the games and movies I've played so far has been fantastic, also the music MP3s have played well too. The sounds in Twisted Metal are most memorable, as you can hear missles zipping around, and inbound with enough clout to make you duck and bob your head around, until you realize what a fool you look like doing this...emersion is what the sound brings you into, and that’s a good thing. I do not know anything about the specs on the PSPs sound system, but I plugged my baby rig into a set of 5.1 Creative Labs surround sound speakers with sub-woofer, and 4 small mid-range units….it sounded fantastic.

Gameplay

You'll quickly forget that you are playing a little machine and start thinking in terms of PS2 gameplay, the machine is so good at what it does that having a home console is now redundant and no longer really needed unless theater sized gaming is your bag. The conrols are tight on most games, but the analog stick is a little misplaced for racing games that require extended fine control analog use.

Summary

I was going to wait a while before getting one of these, but I gave in and jumped. It is tempting to compare the PSP with the other new generation handheld gaming machine, the Nintendo DS, but in a way it's like comparing apples and oranges. The only thing the two machines have in common is that they are portable and they play games. The DS is strictly a gaming machine, though it's possible that developers may find other uses for it. The PSP, however, is a full fledged multimedia delivery system that also plays games. The PSP is a robust, incredible work of technology. I have heard some complaints about the price, but now, after playing with the PSP for a while, I have to say that the $250 base price for the PSP is actually a very good deal. I say this because I have a background in multimedia, video, graphics and animation. Yes, I am a dedicated gamer, and I'll write about my gaming impressions in a bit. But I want to let people know about the incredible multimedia possiblities of this machine, because I've not seen these things mentioned anywhere in the gaming press. First, the video capabilities of this machine are amazing. But I'm not talking about the display quality. I'll get to that in the graphics section below. What I am talking about is the PSP's capability to display video stored on the Memory Stick. For people with a home video editing sytem, which is standard on most new PCs and Macs nowadays, the PSP offers a way to display and share their creations with others, with full stereo audio. There are two ways to get video into the PSP. One, the memory stick format is standardized and there are cheap USB based card readers that will let you copy the MPeg4 files from your PC to the PSP Memory Stick. Secondly, the PSP has a USB port so you can directly hook up a PSP to any computer with USB. This same connectivity allows the display of still images as well, since the PSP supports the JPEG file format. If you have a camera that uses the Memory Stick as it's storage medium, you can put the card directly in the PSP. And, the PSP has built in software that can do some very trick things with still images, like zooming in and out, rotating, panning, and otherwise manipulating the pictures in real time. Then, there is the audio component. MP3 players are so prevalent that they are not news anymore, not even in a new handheld gaming machine. But, the PSP has an audio secret! Not too many people know that Sony developed it's own audio compression technology about twelve years ago. This technology is called ATRAC. It is the technology used in the Sony MiniDisc players/recorders. The MiniDisc was the late Akio Morita's (the founder of Sony) 60 year old dream come true. He had an idea for a device he called a "Voice Mirror" which was realized in the MiniDisc Recorder. And the file format for the MiniDisc is supported by the PSP! Now, I have a MiniDisc Recorder/Player, and I have to tell you, the audio quality is superior to MP3 in every way. What's more, the file format allows for file manipulation in ways that MP3 cannot do, like the insertion of user defined edit points in songs, for instance. Now, about the PSP hardware itself. It is a solid little machine, but seems...vulnerable. It comes with a soft pouch, but with so many buttons and such a large screen, a hard case will be mandatory for this machine. When the PSP was released in Japan, a lot of people over here ordered one, and the initial batch had quite a few manufacturing defects. They have most of those ironed out it seems, however, the memory card cap does pop off unexpectedly on mine, and I am going to have to tape it down. The problem is made worse by the fact that the cap is in contact with your hand when you're playing. The controls seem very sensitive and responsive. Anyone familiar with a PS DualShock will feel at home with the PSP's control scheme. It even has one analog button, on the left side. I only bought one game with it, Wipe Out Pure. It uses the directional buttons for steering, so I cannot comment on how sensitive the analog button is. Buttons. This machine has tons of buttons, and I'll name them off. There are L and R buttons on the shoulders, the four directional buttons on the left side of the face, the analog stick just beneath the directionals, and the familiar triangle, square, circle, and X buttons on the right side of the face.Along the bottom there are a volume up and and volume down button (one for each), a Home button for displaying the system screen, a sound button for tone adjustment with headphones, the familiar start and select buttons, and a display button for adjusting screen brightness. Around the perimeter (the outer edge of the PSP) are the power button with a lock feature, the disk holder access button (media, or UMD, disk carts load in the back), a WLAN switch for wireless networking, and access to the Memory Stick and rechargeable battery compartments. And the machine has some connectors as well. There is an Infra Red port, a USB port, and a specialized headset connector (though you can use standard miniplug headphones with it). About the media used. The UMD is a proprietary Sony format. The disk is a bit less than 2.5 inches in diameter. In fact, it's about 1/8th inch less in diameter than their MiniDisc audio format. The UMD itself is in a sealed plastic enclosure, similar to the old CD-Rom enclosures used in the first CD-Rom drives in the early 90s (if you remember those). However, with the UMD (Universal Media Disk), the disk is sealed in but plainly visible. This set up makes the media fairly delicate. If you are used to throwing your game disks around, or even GBA game carts around, you are going to have to rethink how you handle your games. Sitting or stepping on a UMD will ruin it. Then there is the issue of the display. It is gorgeous. I will get into this more in the graphics section, but in terms of gameplay, it is very easy to accidently put your thumbs and fingers on the display. It appears to wipe clean very easily, though, and the PSP even comes with a special cleaning cloth. But, with that much screen, and with so many buttons exposed, and the fact that the PSP contains a disk drive, it seems to me that even a fall of a short distance will ruin the machine. And, I do mean a short distance. So, if you were standing up, and dropped the PSP on a carpeted floor, it may possibly survive. I would give it a 50/50 chance in that case. But it you dropped it on a hard floor, your PSP would be toast. In fact, I believe that if you were sitting in a chair, with the PSP resting on the arm, and you accidently knocked it off onto a hard floor, the machine would be ruined. These are only my opinions, but I've been a gadgeteer for a long, long time, and I stand by these predictions. So, it means you treat your PSP with TLC. It is NOT for kids! A PSP would not last a week in the hands of the average 10 year old, IMO. I normally do not buy a service agreement when I buy something, but with new technology, it's always a good idea. In fact, I had a battery turn almost red hot and fry my PDA last year, and if I had not had an extended replacement warranty for it, I would have been out $350. Well, the two year agreement I got from Best Buy for $40 for the PSP was well worth it, IMO, and I would recommend anyone contemplating the purchase of a PSP to get one. They really do seem that delicate. Ergonomically, the PSP is well thought out. Given it's massive screen size in relation to the rest of the machine, Sony has done an amazing job. Although some may feel that a handheld movie viewer is not a viable idea, after seeing the PSP display I have to disagree. I think it is great for watching movies, as well as stuff you create yourself or download from the web. The OS seems quite sophisticated. In fact, there is even a provision for wireless OS updates. And the system supports downloadable content for games as well.

Sound

The PSP has a pair of stereo speakers on it's face. They are tiny, and they sound tiny. The PSP comes with a set of headphones that has an inline controller built in so you can control some of the PSPs functions with it rather than the device itself. These sound ok, and are a great improvement over the built in speakers. But, I have a very nice pair of Sony earbuds I use with my PDA and MiniDisc machines, and when these are plugged into the PSP, the sound quality goes off the scale. The included movie, the demo disc, and the game I bought all sound incredible with those earbuds. It is true CD quality audio, without a hint of tinniness or scratchiness.

Gameplay

Well, most of this has already been covered above. But I do think think that the controls deserve special mention. The directional buttons and the shoulder buttons have an awesome feel to them, with just the right springiness and response. The analog button has an unusual design. It slides around the surface of the PSP, then springs back, rather than bending around an axis like the stick on a DualShock controller. You can really feel the PSP's heritage in the controls.