Finally got a chance to spend some extensive time with a friend's PSP.
Overall, I give it a 9/10.
The screen is excellent.
I watched some UMD trailers and it was DVD like quality.
He encoded Family Guy and Naruto episodes at low quality and it was obviously lesser quality, but that's to be expected. Still good for passing time if you use public transportation to commute to school or work.
Surprisingly, it doesn't get too hot during usage.
I don't think movie UMD's is going to catch on given the proprietary format.
They should've put the UMD media into MD form factor so you could at least put some CD quality music on it for those who have MD recorders.
Too many media formats Sony... remember betamax? :thumbsdown:
MP3 player.
Obviously this is not a direct Ipod competitor since it uses flash media and is not a dedicated player.
One thing I did not like was the inability to view other tracks while one is currently playing. Maybe I didn't explore all the options. Let me know if this is a possibility.
The remote control is another neat feature which makes for more convenience on the go.
Photo viewer.
He had some photos and wallpaper on there as well. Photo viewing on the beautiful screen is another plus.
Everything was squeezed onto a 1 GB memory stick, so about 4 TV episodes, a hundred or so MP3's and quite a few pics.
And of course there's the gaming.
The only game he had on was MGS. Didn't get a chance to play in depth but the graphics are PS2-like. I had time on another friend's PSP and he had some cartoony golf game which was fun in the 10 minutes I had with it.
Lastly, with the new software update, there's the web browsing.
It connected to my wifi router instantaneously and browsing was quite intuitive despite the lack of a mouse and keyboard.
You enter URL's just like you would text msg using a cell phone and the shoulder buttons act as back/foward buttons on a real browser.
The analog stick serves as the mouse, but the awkward positioning of the stick cramps up your thumb after extended use.
All the content on the page doesn't fit perfectly on the screen so there's a lot of side scrolling, and the formatting is a bit scrambled. Hopefully a new revision on the browser will fix up some of the HTML interpretation.
Pages load a bit slow though, especially graphic intensive sites. Could be the 32 MB (?) built in memory. Could use a bit more to speed thigns up.
I think this is a great feature if you are close to free hot spots or someone's unprotected WAP :evil:
Two changes I would make are the position of the analog stick, and a touch screen which would help tremendously in the browsing aspect and perhaps the whole interface (scrolling through folders of mp3's and movies).
That would definitely seal the deal.
Given $300 to spend on a media player, I would definitely choose the PSP over the iPod.
To me it's an all-in-one device and gaming is just a bonus feature.
Heck, I'd probably pick one up just for movies and mp3's and not get any games.
Overall, I give it a 9/10.
The screen is excellent.
I watched some UMD trailers and it was DVD like quality.
He encoded Family Guy and Naruto episodes at low quality and it was obviously lesser quality, but that's to be expected. Still good for passing time if you use public transportation to commute to school or work.
Surprisingly, it doesn't get too hot during usage.
I don't think movie UMD's is going to catch on given the proprietary format.
They should've put the UMD media into MD form factor so you could at least put some CD quality music on it for those who have MD recorders.
Too many media formats Sony... remember betamax? :thumbsdown:
MP3 player.
Obviously this is not a direct Ipod competitor since it uses flash media and is not a dedicated player.
One thing I did not like was the inability to view other tracks while one is currently playing. Maybe I didn't explore all the options. Let me know if this is a possibility.
The remote control is another neat feature which makes for more convenience on the go.
Photo viewer.
He had some photos and wallpaper on there as well. Photo viewing on the beautiful screen is another plus.
Everything was squeezed onto a 1 GB memory stick, so about 4 TV episodes, a hundred or so MP3's and quite a few pics.
And of course there's the gaming.
The only game he had on was MGS. Didn't get a chance to play in depth but the graphics are PS2-like. I had time on another friend's PSP and he had some cartoony golf game which was fun in the 10 minutes I had with it.
Lastly, with the new software update, there's the web browsing.
It connected to my wifi router instantaneously and browsing was quite intuitive despite the lack of a mouse and keyboard.
You enter URL's just like you would text msg using a cell phone and the shoulder buttons act as back/foward buttons on a real browser.
The analog stick serves as the mouse, but the awkward positioning of the stick cramps up your thumb after extended use.
All the content on the page doesn't fit perfectly on the screen so there's a lot of side scrolling, and the formatting is a bit scrambled. Hopefully a new revision on the browser will fix up some of the HTML interpretation.
Pages load a bit slow though, especially graphic intensive sites. Could be the 32 MB (?) built in memory. Could use a bit more to speed thigns up.
I think this is a great feature if you are close to free hot spots or someone's unprotected WAP :evil:
Two changes I would make are the position of the analog stick, and a touch screen which would help tremendously in the browsing aspect and perhaps the whole interface (scrolling through folders of mp3's and movies).
That would definitely seal the deal.
Given $300 to spend on a media player, I would definitely choose the PSP over the iPod.
To me it's an all-in-one device and gaming is just a bonus feature.
Heck, I'd probably pick one up just for movies and mp3's and not get any games.
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