I would like to share with you my hands on experience with my Sony PSP, which not only plays games but also music & movies and displays images. Lets start off the review with some technical specs.
Technical Specifications:
- Processor: 333 MHz PSP CPU (underclocked to 222 MHz to save battery life.)
- Internal Memory: 32 MB
- GRAM: 4 MB
- Display: 4.3 inch, 16:9 Wide Screen TFT LCD
- Input: USB 2.0, Memory Stick DUO/ Pro DUO, UMD Media, Wi-Fi, Infrared Direct Access Port
- Multiplayer Connectivity: Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11b (Ad-Hoc and Infrastructure)
Value Pack Contents:
- Sony PSP
- Headphones with remote
- PSP cover with wrist strap
- 32MB Memory Stick DUO
- DC Adaptor/Charger
Must Have addons:
- 256MB+ Memory Stick Pro Duo
- USB Cable
- Carrying Case
- Better quality headphones
Supported Formats:
- Music: MP3, MP4, ATRAC3, WAV
- Video: MP4
- Images: JPG, GIF, TIFF, BMP
The PSP is truly an all round portable entertainment system. It's your MP3 player, gaming console, picture viewer and movie viewer all packed into a small package. The sound quality on the PSP may not be impressive on the PSP's speakers which are not quite loud enough, but plug in the head phones and you have excellent sound quality and volume. Even my compressed 64 KBPS MP3 files sound good with the headphones on. The MP3 playing software is quite basic. It features shuffling, group mode and standard play functions. The one thing that's lacking is a visualization system. That doesn't matter too much though, because you will rarely find yourself staring at the PSP's display while listening to music.
The video quality on the PSP has been improved drastically after the 2.0 firmware update. Video quality similar to UMD video can now be used for Memory Stick video. This means you can watch high quality movies and videos on your PSP, albeit at a higher file size. The video player, like the MP3 player, is quite basic.
The photo viewer on the PSP is quite impressive. Your photos will look amazing on the bright 4.3 inch display. The viewer also has a slideshow mode with some nifty features, like a filmstrip that pops up at the bottom of the screen displaying a scrolling view of all your photos/images. You can exchange your images with nearby PSPs via Wi-Fi. The 2.0 firmware update has also added a wallpaper function, so now you can set any of your images as your PSP's background if you get bored looking at the wavy animated backgrounds. These animated backgrounds change to a different colour every month, which can get annoying sometimes because some of the colours (eg. lime, bright pink, etc.) look extremely bad.
Though many say the battery life is not satisfactory, the truth is it couldn't have been better. The battery can last for over 6 hours when playing games at low brightness. It lasts over 20 hours while continuously listening to MP3s with the display turned off. It will last 6-8 hours while watching movies. Even multiplayer gaming via Wi-Fi can be continued for about 4-5 hours at a stretch. Now, unless someone out there has perfected some new technology to make batteries last much longer with such intensive continuous use, I would say the PSP's battery life is quite good.
One of the most important new additions to the PSP is a web browser. It is very fast and renders pages accurately. Flash is currently not supported, but everything else (internet related) works fine on it. The browser itself has all the functions a browser should have, like tabbed browsing, history, cache and even a mouse pointer which can be controlled by the analog nub!
Right now, it is impossible to pirate the UMDs that the PSP uses for gaming and movies. However, hackers have provided game ISOs that can be run off the Memory Stick. Unfortunately, this only works on older versions of the PSP firmware. It's the same with all of the free software available for the PSP, such as PSP versions of DOOM, Duke Nukem, Heretic, console emulators, homebrew games etc. Only version 1.50 and older can run these software, because Sony added many security measures to versions 1.51+. This is a HUGE turn off for all the people who upgraded their PSP's software, as it cannot be reverted to an older version.
So, overall the PSP is an excellent buy, retailing for just Rs. 13,000 and providing features that would usually cost much more if bought individually in the form of MP3 players, media centres etc. I rate the PSP a 9.5/10 - A MUST BUY portable device.
This concludes my review for now. If you have any questions related to the PSP, please ask me so that I may be able to help you out.
Regards,
- Deathdart.
Images of the Sony PSP
------------------------
Technical Specifications:
- Processor: 333 MHz PSP CPU (underclocked to 222 MHz to save battery life.)
- Internal Memory: 32 MB
- GRAM: 4 MB
- Display: 4.3 inch, 16:9 Wide Screen TFT LCD
- Input: USB 2.0, Memory Stick DUO/ Pro DUO, UMD Media, Wi-Fi, Infrared Direct Access Port
- Multiplayer Connectivity: Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11b (Ad-Hoc and Infrastructure)
Value Pack Contents:
- Sony PSP
- Headphones with remote
- PSP cover with wrist strap
- 32MB Memory Stick DUO
- DC Adaptor/Charger
Must Have addons:
- 256MB+ Memory Stick Pro Duo
- USB Cable
- Carrying Case
- Better quality headphones
Supported Formats:
- Music: MP3, MP4, ATRAC3, WAV
- Video: MP4
- Images: JPG, GIF, TIFF, BMP
The PSP is truly an all round portable entertainment system. It's your MP3 player, gaming console, picture viewer and movie viewer all packed into a small package. The sound quality on the PSP may not be impressive on the PSP's speakers which are not quite loud enough, but plug in the head phones and you have excellent sound quality and volume. Even my compressed 64 KBPS MP3 files sound good with the headphones on. The MP3 playing software is quite basic. It features shuffling, group mode and standard play functions. The one thing that's lacking is a visualization system. That doesn't matter too much though, because you will rarely find yourself staring at the PSP's display while listening to music.
The video quality on the PSP has been improved drastically after the 2.0 firmware update. Video quality similar to UMD video can now be used for Memory Stick video. This means you can watch high quality movies and videos on your PSP, albeit at a higher file size. The video player, like the MP3 player, is quite basic.
The photo viewer on the PSP is quite impressive. Your photos will look amazing on the bright 4.3 inch display. The viewer also has a slideshow mode with some nifty features, like a filmstrip that pops up at the bottom of the screen displaying a scrolling view of all your photos/images. You can exchange your images with nearby PSPs via Wi-Fi. The 2.0 firmware update has also added a wallpaper function, so now you can set any of your images as your PSP's background if you get bored looking at the wavy animated backgrounds. These animated backgrounds change to a different colour every month, which can get annoying sometimes because some of the colours (eg. lime, bright pink, etc.) look extremely bad.
Though many say the battery life is not satisfactory, the truth is it couldn't have been better. The battery can last for over 6 hours when playing games at low brightness. It lasts over 20 hours while continuously listening to MP3s with the display turned off. It will last 6-8 hours while watching movies. Even multiplayer gaming via Wi-Fi can be continued for about 4-5 hours at a stretch. Now, unless someone out there has perfected some new technology to make batteries last much longer with such intensive continuous use, I would say the PSP's battery life is quite good.
One of the most important new additions to the PSP is a web browser. It is very fast and renders pages accurately. Flash is currently not supported, but everything else (internet related) works fine on it. The browser itself has all the functions a browser should have, like tabbed browsing, history, cache and even a mouse pointer which can be controlled by the analog nub!
Right now, it is impossible to pirate the UMDs that the PSP uses for gaming and movies. However, hackers have provided game ISOs that can be run off the Memory Stick. Unfortunately, this only works on older versions of the PSP firmware. It's the same with all of the free software available for the PSP, such as PSP versions of DOOM, Duke Nukem, Heretic, console emulators, homebrew games etc. Only version 1.50 and older can run these software, because Sony added many security measures to versions 1.51+. This is a HUGE turn off for all the people who upgraded their PSP's software, as it cannot be reverted to an older version.
So, overall the PSP is an excellent buy, retailing for just Rs. 13,000 and providing features that would usually cost much more if bought individually in the form of MP3 players, media centres etc. I rate the PSP a 9.5/10 - A MUST BUY portable device.
This concludes my review for now. If you have any questions related to the PSP, please ask me so that I may be able to help you out.
Regards,
- Deathdart.
Images of the Sony PSP
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