LCD screen for the PS1 for under £100? (PS One Mobile Monitor Display Screen)

Member Name: mikeb

Product:	PS One Mobile Monitor Display Screen
Date:	05/02/01 (2372 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good picture & sound, makes the PS1 portable.

Disadvantages: Minimal instructions, tiny text.

Under £100 for a 4.5 inch full colour LCD screen with sound for the PS1, surely not.

I’d heard that Sony were planning to bring out an LCD screen which would integrate with the PS1 to make it portable but was very surprised to see one already available on the shelf of my local Dixons. On closer inspection I noticed it was not actually a Sony made one but made by a company called Innovation. I’d never heard of them and presumed they must be American due to the missing “u” in the spelling of colour on the box, but actually this is made in China. Having just bought a PS1 because of the lack of new games for my Nintendo 64, I decided to take a chance and get this monitor to go with it.

The first thing I noticed when I opened the box was how compact the unit was, measuring only about 8 inches square by 3 inches high when the unit was in its closed position. Also in the box was a unit was an adaptor which will fit into the cigarrette lighter slot of a car so that you can use the PS1 whilst on the move. The lead for this adaptor was an impressive 6 and a half feet in length so would easily reach to the back seat of a car. Completing the contents was an instruction sheet which was frankly a bit of a let down, consisting of a mere 1 and a half pages of text and 1 large diagram. There wasn’t even a mention of the car adaptor or how to use it and considering you had to fit the proper connection on to the end of this from several options this didn’t seem very good or fair.

Having said that the instructions were poor it still didn’t take me very long to get the unit up and running. Basically the entire PS1 unit just slots inside the LCD monitor casing, with the connection slots at the back of the PS1 pushing firmly and securely into the case.

The left hand side of the monitor has:-

1) A connection to plug in your power supply.
2) An earphone socket.
3) The power switch, which has thre
e positions:-
a) Off.
b) On and using the LCD monitor.
c) On and using the PS1 with a television.

The right hand side of the unit has three controls, these are:-

1) Volume.
2) Brightness.
3) Colour.

The back of the LCD unit has the folowing:-

1) AV out socket.
2) Video in socket.
3) Left and Right Audio sockets.


Once the PS1 is secured into the slots it’s just a case of flipping up the screen to the right angle to view the screen and turning on the unit to the b) postion above which turns on the PS1 and also powers up the LCD screen. Once the unit had kicked into action, a matter of about 10 seconds or so, the screen came to life an sure enough my loaded game of Colin McRae Rally 2.0 was on the screen. It was at this point that I encountered a problem. Towards the middle of the screen was a green dot which was pemanently displayed on screen. When the background colour was darkish the dot did not interfere with the game but when it was light it was very offputting. Back to Dixons I went and to be fair to them they exchanged it without query, although one of the assistants did tell me that this problem was called “pixel out” and in actual fact this sort of unit would have to have 4 pixels out to be called faulty. I mention this as a warning to others in case they have a similar situation and the shop refuses to exchange. In my case I think the dot that appeared on the screen was actually more than 1 pixel out, more like a group of them, and the replacement screen has only a very, very small red dot on it which makes absolutely no difference, you can hardly see it. I would think this is “pixel out” and I can see why the 4 pixel rule is applied if this is the case.

So what is the quality of the picture on the screen I hear you ask. Well it’s really very good, with only two reservations. Firstly, you have to make sure that the colour and brightness c
ontrols are correctly adjusted and then make sure you’ve got the screen set at the best angle. Anybody who has watched someone playing a Gameboy and tried to look at the screen from the wrong angle will know what I mean. Second drawback, and probably the only major one, is that due to the size of the monitor small text is very, very hard to read. This means that you virtually have to know what the menu screens say to be able to play or guess which options to take. You would not play a new game first on this monitor before playing it on TV. The sound is very good and clear enough for things like speech and sound effects. I have not had chance to test it in a car yet but will update after I’ve done so.

All in all, and for a reasonable £99.99, I think this unit offers value for money and certainly does what it says of making the PS1 truly portable. The lack of detailed instructions and the reservations about text on screen are things to be considered before you buy but experienced console users and players should have no real problems with these. I think Innovation are to be congratulated for getting this unit into the shos so soon after the launch of the PS1 and have definately stolen a march on Sony. I look forward to seeing what Sony's monitor is like when it finally arrives and it is up to you if you want to wait for that or take the plunge with this one now.

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