gorocco's Full Review: Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) Console
After much anticipation, Sony has released its vision for the future of portable entertainment, the Playstation Portable, or PSP. It is a slick look multitasker, but how does it match up to all of the hype?
The Nitty-Gritty
The PSP is a slick looking piece of hardware. It is encased in glossy black plastic with clear plastic left and right shoulder buttons and an aluminum rim running around the unit. The PSP itself is measured at 6.7 by .9 by 2.9 inches and weighs in at approximately 10 ounces. The back of the unit is emblazoned with the minimalist PSP logo. The front sports a four directional D-pad and a flat analog “disk” on the left and four buttons on the right. The unit also sports Home, Volume controls, Screen Brightness control, Select, and Start buttons below the screen. Each button is slightly raised from the surface, adding the sleek design. The screen is a sizeable 4.3 inch, 16:9 widescreen LCD that occupies 2/3 of the front; it is capable of producing 480 x 272 pixels and 16.8 million colors. The front of the unit and the screen is covered with a clear, glossy plastic. While it adds to the slick, visual appeal, it feels cheap enough to scratch easily.
The PSP also features WiFi (802.11b) that can be toggled on and off via a button on the left side of the unit. The top of the unit yields a USB 2.0 slot, infrared, and two accessory holes. The power/hold button is located on the right of the unit. A headphone jack is found on the bottom on the unit as is the AC adapter port.
For $249.99, the PSP comes packaged with a lanyard, a 32 MB Memory Stick Duo, headphones, remote, rechargeable battery, and a neoprene case. I also got a Spider-Man 2 UMD and a sampler UMD that contains videos of movie previews, music videos, and games. Unfortunately, you do not get any playable demos.
PSP as a Video Player
The powerful PSP screen does a nice job playing movies. You can adjust the screen brightness by three levels at the touch of a button. The screen can be viewed quite well from a variety of angles and works quite well indoors and outdoors. Outdoors with much ambient sunlight, you can see details in the screen well. During fast scenes in games and movies especially in the Spider-Man 2 UMD, mild ghosting effects are noticeable in some of the intense action sequences. Audio was very loud and crisp, especially from such a small device. This is a good thing as the sound might otherwise by overshadowed by the horrendously loud scratchy sound of the UMD spinning. On a fully charged battery, the PSP has been reported to get about 3 hours of life when playing movies.
The biggest problem with the PSP as a movie player is the format. UMDs cost about $5 less than standard DVDs and will likely lack the extras and special features due to space limitations. That is quite a price for a format that is accepted only on the PSP. The Spider-Man 2 UMD, for example, was a bare bones production. You could play the movie and toggle subtitles on and off. You cannot select a scene, though you can skip through chapters with the left and right shoulder buttons. And there were no special features included. Since the Spider-Man 2 DVD has been out for months, it would have been easy to tack on some of the extras. However, given that a UMD disk can hold only a quarter information of a DVD, size was a likely limiting factor.
You can play videos (MPEG-4 format only) saved on the Memory Stick Duo. This requires you to buy a high capacity card (Memory Stick Duos do not come cheap) and to manually create the specific file structure on your PC for the PSP to find and play the video file. The PSP does not have any A/V output, so you cannot plug it into a TV.
PSP as a MP3 Player
As a pure music player, the PSP did the playbacks well. Music was clear via the the internal speakers, which are located on the front of the unit. The volume that the PSP could crank out was equally impressive with its internal speakers. It is not going to wake up your neighbors, just your roommate.
As a MP3 player, the PSP is a disaster. The PSP supports only MP3 and ATRAC files. The PSP is quite user unfriendly and lacks options for creating playlists or organizing your music. The machine displays your songs as they are arranged on your Memory Stick file folder. That is assuming that you have created the specifically named folders for storing your music on your PC. There is freeware to help you to create a playlist, but overall, the PSP is not going to replace the iPod anytime soon.
PSP as a Game Player
While the PSP can play movies and music, the real draw are the games. Without a doubt, the PSP delivers. The PSP comes packaged with a sampler UMD. No demos are included, but the videos are jaw dropping enough to entice you to buy the games for nothing more than the visual eye candy. Imagine playing early PS2 games in the palm of your hand; that’s how great they look.
As Ridge Racer was horribly underproduced for the launch, I got a copy of Ape Escape ($19.99 with rebate from FYE). While the game is a port of the original PS1 game, it appears to have handled the transition well. Graphics are very bright and animation was very crisp, marred by some ghosting effects. Ape Escape lacks highly detailed textures, likely due to its origins. The large screen made it easy to play for hours without eye strain. The controls take some getting used to, especially with the analog disk that slides as opposed to tilts. After hours of playing, I still do not feel that I have the same level of control as with a traditional analog stick. Ape Escape is hampered most by long load times that are made excruciatingly worse by the frequent need to load data.
The battery handled itself well, lasting over 4 hours of play. Even then, there was still at least 25% of battery life left. With WiFi on, play time is reported to hover around the three hour mark. I did not play with the wireless capabilities as you have to find local PSP owners that have your game to engage in multiplayer mayhem.
Unfortunately, the PSP launch is lacking. All of the titles look good, but for the most part, the launch titles are rehashes of earlier PS games. The EA and Sony sports games are based off of the 2004-5 season games. Tony Hawk Underground 2? Been there, done that (3 extra levels is not enough for me to want to go back). Darkstalkers? That game predates the PS2. Brotherhood of the Blade? Or do you mean cough… Champions of Everquest or Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance. Only Metal Gear Acid and Lumines are different. I know that Ridge Racer also falls into the category of rehashed games, but it looks like the perfect software to show off the processing muscle of this new toy. I grew tired of many of the PS2 counterparts a long time ago; why would I want to shell out another $40-50 for what is essentially the same game? At this time, you have to be highly motivated to replay these games on a smaller screen with a funkier control setup as the PSP is short an analog controller and four buttons from its big brother PS2. Where is that killer app to truly take advantage of the PSP and wow the masses like Halo did for the X-Box?
The most obvious competition to the PSP at this time is the Nintendo DS. Comparing the two side by side, technology wise, the PSP blows away Nintendo’s dual screens. Thanks to its high resolution screen, images appear sharper and crisper on the PSP. The larger screen lessens visual fatigue and eye strain during long hours of play. The DS benefits from a massive library of games thanks to backwards compatibility with the Gameboy Advance, but the gap of quality games will narrow as third party support for the PSP grows.
The PSP is Here to Stay
The PSP is a jack-of-all-trades, but it is the master of one: portable gaming. The opening salvo of games, while visually impressive, falls short in the creativity department. With a library that will be strengthened with franchises such as NBA Street and Grand Theft Auto, third party support does not look to be a problem in the foreseeable future. It is doubtful that the PSP will succeed as a portable video or music player unless Sony tries to push for the UMD format into the mass market; however, they are likely to repeat the MiniDisk disaster from years back. If you are look to buy a PSP, you are looking to buy the most powerful portable gaming machine available.
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