I was supposed to review the PSP several months ago. Did this happen? No. So, what is this post? It's in the Reviews category. It's sort of a review, and sort of a rant. More of a rant, honestly. But I think you should buy one if it fits your wants and needs. Heck, you'll prefer it to your PDA is all you do on your PDA is play games, play music, play video and surf the Internet via 802.11b. :D Of course, that might change in time. Now, onward to my rant:
As you know, I bought a Playgear Pocket to house my PSP, since I felt it was very vulnerable even in the enclosed soft case. The picture below is new, although it might appear to be a repeat of the last round I did this. Now, I know. It looks smooth. It looks like it's brand new. Wow.
Of course, it's not always wise to just assume. Here's a zoom in:
Now, onwards to my now naked PSP. Please don't comment on how badly my photos were taken. I don't have a good camera, don't have a good set, and don't have anything remotely good for taking photographs aside from my table and some sheets of A4 paper.
I love Lumines. Now, I'm going to show you what it looks like when there's it's protuding as I put it in or pull it out. Hehe.
The other thing I got for my PSP is a 1GB Memory Stick Duo Pro.
Yes yes, I know. It's a Sony. Now, I think some of you might want to start pounding as to why I'm so brand loyal. Well, firstly, I got it cheap. Another thing, I don't know whether it's true or not, but some people on the Internet did complain that Sandisk refused to change their MSPDs if it didn't work in their PSPs. I believe they were authentic, but I also believe the problem was resolved long ago. You need this small expensive stick to unlock the full potential of your PSP. You need it to play tons of music, you need it to watch video, you need it to put loads of save games, put the entire Wipeout Pure downloadable content on it, you also need it for photos. Now, I didn't review the PSP earlier because I didn't have one of these. Simply put, I believe that the PSP is not complete without one PSP, one game and one Memory Stick Pro Duo at least 512MB.
Now, I love the MSPD. It's smaller than an SD card, but it's not too small.
It supports atrac3, which people seem to not like, but I like atrac3 and I believe the same holds through for many other people. It can hold about 8-9 episodes of reasonable quality transcoded anime, but if you're like me, you'll probably put about 5 episodes, which fills about half the stick. 5 episodes translates to roughly 2 hours of video. About one movie's worth. Good enough for carrying around, if you ask me.
Because it's so shiny and glossy, it generally makes fingerprints, dust and all sorts of not as black things very obvious if you're not playing the PSP. The camera's flash will prove this point for me:
The flash overpowers the screen backlight and allows you to see what grime there is above the screen currently playing Lumines.
Without the flash, things look very very different.
What grime? Honestly, this is what it looks like when you are playing. Dust, dirt and grime and invisible with the backlight in not-so-bright places. Bright places generally don't mean well lighted places. Bright places means anywhere where you have loads of sun (meaning VERY BRIGHT). (If you are observant, it's still the same game, with me ignoring the game to take the photo. ;) )
I only have three games. To prove this photos are recent, I took them with a nice Ravnica... something. Mouse pad maybe. It's a new Magic expansion set.
Here's what's inside them. UMD only la.... manuals you don't have to see. :D
The following is just a set of photos I decided to take:
The web browser that came with the 2.0 firmware. I updated as soon as it came out, since I didn't care much for homebrew anyway. The browser is good, and seems to be as useful as those that come on PocketPCs and from what I've observed, I think it's based on some form of Mozilla. (Just a hunch.)
Honestly speaking, none of these photos do the PSP justice. When you actually look at the real thing, you realise the screen is a lot nicer than it looks in these photos. I honestly originally hammered the PSP on its battery life - but that's another story when I saw what the screen in real life was like. It trashes the Nintendo DS screen outright. Who cares about battery life? Small problem. :D That being said, the battery life is enough for normal use, and a daily charge should keep you busy while you're on public transport, but I'd say that if you plan on playing an RPG on it, bring an AC adapter.
The soft case is pretty protective, but the PSP logo in front is actually a downside. Since it's actually sewn there, the impression is also made on the interior of the case, resulting in some not so pleasant results when you take out your PSP. Otherwise, I think it'll protect the PSP for disasters like my college bag.
This is why people like the Koei makeshift case. It's good. Really good. It's pretty big, but good for travelling.
It'll swallow your PSP whole, Playgear Pocket and a few UMDs too! (with some effort, and care, so your UMDs don't break. Hopefully.) :P
And yes, I know it's more of a photo rant. But I don't like reviewing stuff people already reviewed, so I might as well just rant. With loads of photos. To lag your browsers. HAHAHAHAHAHA (put evil laugh here)