Last of the old guard (Sony PSP Slim & Lite)

Member Name: icetsunami

Product:	Sony PSP Slim & Lite
Date:	21/07/09 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: As excellent as ever

Disadvantages: Soon to be obsolete

PSP 3000 series

Yet another update for Sony's portable games whizz ushers in the end of an era before a significant change to the platform later this year with the PSP Go. The 3000 has a 5 fold imrovement with the contrast ratio and quicker response times to give sharper images and reduce ghosting effets.

The screen is a 4.3cm widescreen is 16:9 aspect ratio displaying 16.77 million colours. It is powered by a 333mhz processor and 64mb of memory and retains the UMD disc format. Its versatility is obvious with a variety of supported codecs across audio and video formats including MPEG4, AVI, MP3 and AAC. Integrated Wifi (IEEE 802.11b) gives online gaming and browsing from a suitable hotspot and the 3000 can be mated to the PS3 over the net to stream content. Mini USB 2.0 is included for data transfer and synching and there is both an analogue out and microphone.

Crucially, this will be the last PSP incarnation that uses the UMD disc facility. The PSP Go will use solid state flash memory rendering discs obsolete. In favourable terms however this could mean a further drop in prices for games and films and an even bigger drop for the preowned market. This is good news for owners of previous generations of PSP's.

As ever this is the best portable games machine on the market today and remains the choice for serious gamers though the DSi is hot on its heels. It has to be said however that the PSP has a better library of games, in quality if not in number.

To summarise its now cheaper than ever and feature packed with the lastest kit. Wifi and PS3 synching are great and its an excellent media player.
The only thing is do you want to wait for the revised and more expensive PSP Go with its smaller dimensions and sliding game controller?

Summary: No1 choice for portable gaming.