A true gamers portable console (Sony PSP)

Member Name: JackED42

Product:	Sony PSP
Date:	24/08/09 (31 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lots of games, good compatability

Disadvantages: UMD may soon be obsolete and expensive memory sticks

Sony PSP (Playstation Portable) is a handheld console created by sony. It is about 5 years old now, but is still holding on quite well. This review is about the PSP 1000 or "Phat".

The PSP 1000 is thicker than the PSP 2000 and 3000, but not rediculously so. It is not uncomfortable to hold when playing games and is not very heavy. The screen is a decent size at about 4.3".

The PSP's operating system is used around the XMB or Cross Media Sidebar. Basically, you scroll across left and right to find a specific section, i.e Music, Videos, Settings. Then go up and down on each specific section to find different options (e.g. in settings there is Connectivity Settings, Video Settings. This is a very good way to navigate around the PSP.

The PSP 1000 has a UMD drive. This is the storage media that the PSP reads. The UMDs store full movies, albums and games that can be used on the PSP. The screen is good quality and watching movies on it does not really strain your eyes. The PSP has Wi-Fi allowing you to connect to the internet. The PSP has a built in browser and the Wi-Fi can also be used to play game online.

There are lots and lots of games available for the PSP for all different gamers. There are some games with famous titles like Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider, FIFA, Rock Band and Buzz (quiz game). Also some big games are coming out soon, such as Little Big Planet and Gran Turismo. There are two very useful multiplayer functions available on the PSP too. Firstly you can play against your friends in "Ad-Hoc mode". This allows two or more people to play against each other, without the need of a router (PSP to PSP). Another great multiplayer function is "Game Sharing". Only certain games support this, but this allows you to play a multiplayer game with only one copy of it.

The PSP supports many video, audio, and image formats. The video formats supported MP4, AVI and UMDs. The audio formats supported are MP3, ATRAC, MP4, WAV and WMA. The image formats supported are JPEG, TIFF, GIF, PNG and BMP.

With one of the newest firmware updates, a new feature is the "Playstation Store". This allows you to download new features including:-

Wallpapers
TV Shows
Game Trailers
Demos, Playstation 1 emulated games, PSP games, game add-ons
Comics
Themes
MP3s

A big issue with the PSP is that there is no internal memory, you need to use Memory Stick Pro Duo memory sticks, which can be quite expensive. (However, I did find a second hand 4gb Memory Stick Pro Duo at Game for 15 quid).

Another issue is that the PSP Go will be released soon. This is the newest version of the PSP and has no UMD drive; all games are downloaded from the internet. This may mean that UMDs will become obsolete very soon.

With the price tag of preowned PSPs at between 50-90 pounds, it is a bargain. I highly recommend this.

Summary: A great portable console, recommended