Alas, my very first portable gaming system. Although I’ve been playing games since 1984, I never was fortunate enough back then to get a regular black and white Gameboy, especially not the Neo Geo pocket or Atari Lynx. Don’t know what these things are? If you don’t that’s fine, just keep it to yourself and don’t ask me what Moses was like during his teens.

I’m going to cover everything about the system, including its pros and cons.

Presentation 5/5

This bundle indeed rocks due to the savings and instant plug and play. The bundle costed $199 or $217 after taxes. Regular price for PSP-3000 goes for $169.99, along with a 2GB memory duo stick/card for 14.99, Dissidia the game $39.99 and Advent Children UMD goes for $9.99 separately. The cost would of been $256 after taxes, which gives me a savings of $40. On top of that, you get the system in mystic silver which is less prone to scratches and visible fingerprints. I like the really cool “3d” Final Fantasy box. The characters are bulged out on the box a little. I think it would seal the deal if they chose to give us the Final fantasy engraving art on the back, but its usually the US gamers who get less than Japan, sigh. Still it’s pretty good overall, as the Japanese bundled version is much more expensive, I.E. there is no savings.

SYSTEM FEATURES BREAKDOWN


Screen 5/5Sony has always been known to have elite quality screens. As such, this game system’s main attraction is it’s large and Wide 4.3″ 480×272 16.7 Mil color improved gamut screen. The higher resolution, wide screen feature, size and resolution set it apart against other portable handheld gaming and PMP systems. This makes games and films much more attractive to watch.

Connectivity 5/5
The bottom features a combined headphone, and video/audio out port that can connect component or composite out to your HDTV or SDTV. The cable is proprietary, so an aftermarket cable is recommended as it’s only a few dollars on Amazon. Any headphone with a standard 1/8 adapter will work.The top includes a generic mini-usb cable input for transfer/recharge slot is included so you don’t have to buy any “Sony proprietary parts.” Your standard digital camera cable or PS3 controller cable is sufficient for this. Memory cards can be swapped out and run about $44USD for 16GB cards.

Games 5/5
This should be the main reason you buy this. This is basically a copy of the PS2 n the palm of your hand! Unlike the main console systems, the portable systems have almost all exclusive titles. The game library is massive, because you can include a large portion of PS-one titles that you can download off the PSN. Speaking of PSN, there’s plenty of things to download such as the fully featured games, and you can try demos before you buy. A new addition area “MINIS” which are puzzle like games. Games like Resistance: Retribution I demo’d was absolutely fantastic. Of course God of War, Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core, and Gran Turismo should keep you off the edge of your seat. There is many games to keep a player happy of all sorts. You have the option of downloading games to system or using the store bought UMDs.

Video5/5
This should be the second reason you buy this. Due to the improved color handling, 16:9 native screen, video watching is a joy. I was hoping that videos weren’t too hard to convert, and I was saved by an easy “1-2-3″ step converter that was made free license. You can DL that here: Videophiles may have scoffed about the 1-2-3 simpleness, but let’s face it, you’re watching this on your portable, you’re not converting video to watch on your computer. I was able to even convert Mkv, the usual MP4 and avi, wmv and mpeg1 videos to the 480×272 resolution. Watching BoA, Girls’ Generation, and Do as Infinity is awesome on this. As a future traveler, this will be a life saver within the confines of hotels and bare bone apartments.

Pictures 5/5
Pictures require no conversion and it’s as simple with the drag n drop interface or making new folders in the picture as sub folders. The pictures are more reliant upon aspect ratio, rather than size. If your pictures are already wide, they will fit no matter what the resolution. Anyways, that doesn’t even matter as their is a zoom tool that zooms out the pictures to fit a square into a rectangle. You can easily zoom in and out on any picture, or rotate with a single button press. Setting the pictures as wallpaper only takes one click as well which can be set to zoom cropped or zoomed out. Saving pictures on the web is just as easy.

OK, this blog is hella long , and there are more features to talk about. So please stay tuned for Part II.