Playstation With TFT monitor (PlayStation in General)

Member Name: BOBBOB

Product:	PlayStation in General
Date:	30/09/02 (863 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great quality TFT monitor, wide range of games, covers all genres, styles for any age.

Disadvantages: Not graphically amazing, Average sound quality

Playstation, what a naff name eh. In some countries it's known as the polystation. Both sounding just as bad, yet despite this when this console came out it broke all the rules. It was the first CD based console. Poor loading times but masses of storage space per CD really made this console what it is or was.

The PSone as its now known was the predecessor to today's playstation2 and tomorrows playstation3. The PSone was favoured very much so and is probably still widely in use today. I bet you know someone with one of these. Their success was most likely due to the format of its games and the collapse of its biggest rival the Nintendo64. Nintendo still used cartridges that loaded fast but held little storage space. This mean's that games didn't have a full soundtrack or that levels were often truncated in conversions of PS games onto the N64. Another drawback of the cartridges was the sheer expense of them. I can remember buying Mario Kart 64 on the second day of its release; its price was a whopping £60!!! Compare this to the already established PSone with its brand new releases retailing at £40 (2/3 the price).

It was obvious that this particularly Era (Playstation Vs. Nintendo64) belonged to the playstation. Its poorer graphics but cheaper and much more games made it the best console to own. With half the processing power the playstation proved for once that it was sheer quantity and not quality.

Today the Playstation gets rebranded to PSone and the games prices have dropped to an astonishing price the average second hand game from gamestation being around £12 but prices can range from as little as £5 - £35 (new games). The price of the console is cheap too and can be brought brand new for as little as £59.99 and second hand at £35. Where's the N64 today? Second hand £16.99 (the games cost more, heh).

Sony's playstation doubles up as a CD player that is of fairly good quality and build as it's produ
ced by Sony. The actual console itself is sturdy and can come in one of 2 forms, the old PSone and the new PSone. The difference on the outside being the new version more curved and even smaller in size. On the inside the old PSone was subject to having its lens easily damaged making a replacement necessary. On the new model this problem is almost non-existent and is to a greater degree sturdier.

As those of you who read my opinions should know I always like to include a section about the dark side or illegal side of a consoles life. I am assured that both the old and new version of the playstation console can be chipped. This means discarding your warrantee / guarantee and placing a chip inside your playstation. With a bit of soldiering and tweaking your playstation can run import and copied games. The reliability of chipping a playstation one is quite good and the success rate of having your console chipped is good. However it can still be damaged and think carefully about the consequences before you chip a console. My advice would be to get someone who knows what they're doing to chip it for you (check your local market, prices are around £15, don't pay anything more!) Not that I condone this thing, of course. Copied games can be readily brought and can be as much as 50P in some cases and never go as far as £5. Also renting a game will never be the same again if you have a CD writer on your PC.

What about this new TFT screen, then? Well for about an extra £80 you can splash out and get a small monitor for your playstation. This allows the use of your playstation without needing a T.V. Don't worry about the quality because after carefully examining (playing) on one I've decided that they're excellent. Some may even have speakers. Although your playstation won't be truly portable it does allow you to take it round to say a mates house and play it all night if they don't have a T.V. in their bedroom. I would suggest buy
ing the TFT monitor. It's simply brilliant and still relatively inexpensive.

Rating:
-------
TFT monitor (5/5) - Great quality
-----------------
Playstation (3/5) - in comparison to today's modern consoles
-----------------
Games (4/5) - Some excellent titles
-----------------
Usability (5/5) - even if you upgrade to a playstation 2 the old joypads and games from this console can be run on that!
-----------------
Expense (4/5)
-----------------

-----------------
-----------------
Overall (4.2/5) approx. (4/5)
-----------------
-----------------

Summary: