oh where oh where has my little doggie gone

So where have I been?


Need I say more?

So here is yet another review of this little gem:
1,000,000. $250. Two important numbers. Currently there are only about 1,000,000 PSPs in America. Making finding one somewhat of an easter egg hunt. The entry cost is a cool $250. Expensive for an over zealous Game Boy? Indeed. Too much for a movie player, MP3 player, picture album, game console, with wireless capabilities? Not at all. It's worth the entry price, that's for sure. Once you get your hands on it, you're smitten and can't put it down.

But how good is it really? Normally when one things tries to do many things at the same time, it does each poorly, case in point: Pontiac Aztek. But does the PSP suffer from the same achilles heel? For the most part, no...but time will tell. The PSP uses a new media form, called the UMD (Universal Media Disc), and a special mini style Memory Stick. Basically what this means is that if third-party vendors don't take a shining to the UMD, the PSP is almost destined to fail. But with Sony making the PSP and having it's fingers in both music and movies, there is certian to be some UMD avalbility for some movies and music albums. The new Memory Stick is used to store game saves, movies, music and pictures, and luckily, the PSP is able to connect to nearly any computer through a universally avalible USB cord, so you can plug the PSP directly into the computer and read and write directly to the Stick, no use to buy any proprietary reader or writer. Although Sony says they have no plans to make UMD-R's or RW's, or even anything else that uses UMDs, it would be wise to reconsider. As the PSP will appeal to more then just gamers, and having the ability to burn custom music discs or VCD (VUMD?) would be a major plus.

As a music player, it does just fine. Not as good as a iPod, but then again, nothing is better then an iPod for file based music playing. You only have basic repeat and shuffle options, no "play by artist" or "play by album" ability. You can make groups and group like music files together and play those as a playlist, but it's not as easy as an iPod. Sound wise it is impressive. The included earbud earphones are surpsingly rich and full in thier sound, and you can hear a difference in each of the included (but not customizable, at least not for now) EQ settings. The inline remote, similar to iPod's, is handy and has just the right amount of features to get teh basics done, play/pause, forward/backward, and volume, without being cluttered or bulky. The addition of a seperate 'hold' switch is handy too.

As a video player, again, it does quite well. I've never used a dedicated video player, if there really is one outside of portable DVD players, so I can't compare it directly to anything else. But I'll tell you this, this picture is better then my TV. Rich, vibrant colors, all 16,800,000 of them, are a dazzle to the eye and are simply a sight to be seen. The screen is HUGE for a handheld, a 4.3 inches with a 16:9 aspect ratio. While the screen is a bit small to really get immersed into a game or video, it is really a wonderful diversion from reality. Burning videos to the memory stick through your computer isn't straight-forward, as it only reconizes MPEG4 video, and you have to go a round about way to get them onto the memory disc the first time, once they are on there...they look every bit as good as you'd expect. A few display options allow for fullscreen viewing (stretching/shrinking the video to fit), normal viewing (native size that fits on the screen), or zoomed view (picture is zoomed in a bit and cropped at the edges). Your usual random and repeat modes are found here as well.

As a gaming console, it's main intention, it is again, simply stunning. You quickly forget you're playing a game on a handheld (outside of the finger cramps) that doesn't even weigh a pound, and is the size of an average adult man's hand. The games I've played would fare well on a big console, outside of the lack of content due to space limitations on the UMD, much less a handheld. Ridge Racer features such grown-up attributes as dynamic backgrounds, dynamic skids, a fully envolving soundtrack (espically with the earbuds), great gameplay and rich detail in the cars and environments. I'm not gonna review the game, but simply put, Ridge Racer is why you buy the PSP for games...simply a great play for everyone. Someone tell Namco that launch games aren't supposed to be this good (Halo notwithstanding on XBox). All I know is that if the current crop of games are any indication of where the PSP is headed on the gaming front, there is a great future ahead.

OK, OK, so the PSP is good all around, but it's far from perfect. My complaints, although short, are very aggrivating to me, although not enough to not recommend an immediate purchase of a PSP to a friend. First and foremost, the highly glossy faceplate shows smudges like no ones business. While it's nice that the entire faceplate is one solid peice of acrylic plastic keeping the screen safe below, the high gloss finish hides nothing. At least a wipedown cloth is included with the Value Pack version of the PSP. I must first explain the function of the on/off/hold switch before my next complaint. To turn the unit on, you slide the on/off/hold button up and release, easy peasy. To put the unit into "sleep" mode, when the unit is on, you slide the button up and release again...basically turning the screen off, pausing the game, and turning the unit off...do the same action to remove the unit from sleep mode, turning the screen back on and resuming the game/video/whatever to the pre-sleep state. To turn the unit off, you slide the button up and hold it for a few seconds. To place the unit on hold, you click and lock the slide down. The hold button on the main unit itself is great, it prevents accidental button pushes during video or music playback (espically errant pushes of the highly vunerable shoulder buttons), but when you go to remove the unit from hold, it's very easy to go too far and turn the unit off or put it to sleep. For me, it takes a dedicated effort to ensure that I don't put the thing to sleep. It should be just a simple slide, not an effort. Lastly, the lack of any button lighting. While using the unit in low-light situations, you can neither see nor feel the auxilary buttons to preform an action. There are NO distinguishing knobs or shapes or anything to distinguish one button from another by feel alone. Not only that, the buttons do not stick up past the faceplate and finding them by feel, even without distinguishing knobs, you can't find them. None of this would be a problem if at least the auxilary buttons featured some lighting to see them in the dark. Having a feature in the Systems folder to dim the brightness level, or turn them off, simialr to the main display brightness levels, would really, really be helpful. Other then that....it's great. No w back to the fun....see ya in a month.