My PSP Impression

Well a local import shop received their stock of the import PSP systems and I was given the chance to play with one for a good couple of hours.

First The Pros

-First and foremost, the screen is liquid sex. THe picture is clear, clean and very bright. I was amazed at the detail quality the LCD screen could do. Sony chose a good screen. Though I did see 2 dead pixels.

That's about it for the pros

Now the Cons

-The button quality. Is it me or do the shoulder buttons feel like they are flimsy and gonna break off if you actually press them a little harder then normal. After firing up Ridge Racer and The Golf game, I kept worrying about breaking the shoulder buttons if I pressed them too hard. That's a pretty bad view to have on a brand new system. Even the normal buttons (Actually the Square Button) kept sticking. I have heard this is because of the way it's placed? Not sure but only having the system in my hands for a couple hours, that's not a good thing the button was sticking slighty. The analog stick isn't much better. Feels like it will fall off pretty easily.

-The battery life. One word "Fucked" Charing the unit for 2 hours and having the battery last about 2.25 hours is patethic. I was getting into Ridge Racer when the after a long period, the battery ended up dying on me. Personally, having a portable unit I would hope mean have the ability to to play it without an extension cord attached to it. I can only imagine with the wifi on and playing a game, yoru battery life could be less then 2 hours. This is uncalled for.

- Last but not least, the flimsy door design for the UMD media. The first impression of inserting a game and closing the lid felt very breakable. Unless you push the door in from the middle of the unit, the door seemed to bend slighty if you closed it from the right or left side. I can already see a major disaster with this failing in the first couple months in the hands of an average gamer.


I don't know, if the US system is like this, I'll be waiting for a while until the issues above are fixed.

Just my .02 cents

This pic makes the awful button placement more obvious

http://news.spong.com/detail/assetView.asp?mode=console&viewid=157900&type=11&prid=8260

And yeah, the Square button feels horrid.

Highlander67 said:

Well a local import shop received their stock of the import PSP systems and I was given the chance to play with one for a good couple of hours.

First The Pros

-First and foremost, the screen is liquid sex. THe picture is clear, clean and very bright. I was amazed at the detail quality the LCD screen could do. Sony chose a good screen. Though I did see 2 dead pixels.

That's about it for the pros

Now the Cons

-The button quality. Is it me or do the shoulder buttons feel like they are flimsy and gonna break off if you actually press them a little harder then normal. After firing up Ridge Racer and The Golf game, I kept worrying about breaking the shoulder buttons if I pressed them too hard. That's a pretty bad view to have on a brand new system. Even the normal buttons (Actually the Square Button) kept sticking. I have heard this is because of the way it's placed? Not sure but only having the system in my hands for a couple hours, that's not a good thing the button was sticking slighty. The analog stick isn't much better. Feels like it will fall off pretty easily.

-The battery life. One word "Fucked" Charing the unit for 2 hours and having the battery last about 2.25 hours is patethic. I was getting into Ridge Racer when the after a long period, the battery ended up dying on me. Personally, having a portable unit I would hope mean have the ability to to play it without an extension cord attached to it. I can only imagine with the wifi on and playing a game, yoru battery life could be less then 2 hours. This is uncalled for.

- Last but not least, the flimsy door design for the UMD media. The first impression of inserting a game and closing the lid felt very breakable. Unless you push the door in from the middle of the unit, the door seemed to bend slighty if you closed it from the right or left side. I can already see a major disaster with this failing in the first couple months in the hands of an average gamer.


I don't know, if the US system is like this, I'll be waiting for a while until the issues above are fixed.

Just my .02 cents

Click to expand...

Nice to have a coherent review from someone and not just a fanboy rant.

Apparently there were some concerns about the placement of the buttons before it went into production and the problem with the square button is that its placed really close to the edge of the screen and instead of pressing down directly onto the point on the pcb it has some sort of lever that it activates when pressed.Then next thing will be not about this button sticking but maybe some terminal failure of the button.

I don't think that sony needed to rush the PSP out.It was apparently pencilled in for a releae around June as I recall but their head honcho decided it needed to be releases asap.Apparenlty he is the one who has stuck fanatically to every aspect of the design of the PSP and wouldn't move from that vision.

The sad thing is that for all the good things that people have said about the PSP,their are a lot more flaws that needed to be addressed.

As you said,battery life and flimsy build quality probably means that there will be a PSP2 released about 8 months down the line where they have had to feverishly address the issues.Its not like the GBA situation where the darkness of the screen was alleviated by just fitting an Afterburner kit.The PSP is expensive and has too many reported problems.And yet another one with a screen with dodgy pixels.

Only the future will tell.

forget the 2 buttons... the system feels like its going to break sometimes.


When you play, the system creaks here and there.

Kinda crazy The screen is nice.... but still at times (on some screens) the colors look like they are blurring a little... maybe the screen is too bright?
not sure. Its not a bad blurring ... just a little bit of blur.

†B†V†

I personally hate sony with the crap they have been putting out year after year. The quality is always crappy. For some reason after playing with a PSP I just had to get one. I know that it will fall appart but there is something about that screen that I just fell in love with.
I have to totally agree with you on every thing you said in this review. I'm now thinking about taking my reserve off. Especially if they bump that price to $250-300 like they are saying. That is just not right. That price with that crappy quality. But the games look soooo good.
Well if I take the reserve off I'll just have to buy a couple more Neo games.

By the way soopafamicom where is the GBC?

I wan't this thing in my hands right right now....

I just can't wait to get mine on March 24th... I don't think it's a bad deal considering there are more stuff than what the Japanese gamers get for their value pack.

Also... I can truly know how good this thing when it's in my hands, other than hearing from others... cause I had the DS in my hands from time to time... and it was mostly disappointing.

I appreciate the compliments guys. Yeah, I really had high hopes for the PSP. I just can't seem to get past the feeling it's gonna break easily. I think I'll wait until they maybe bring out a new revision that may address some of the concerns with the unit.

it s not as weak as it may seem it can fall and sustain damage.
mine did -not from too high, about 1m and i managed to catch the earphones slightly before the contact- , and thanks to the "holding" curve on both sides the only really vital and fragile part of the back -the disk tray- has not been touched, the battery cover did slip a bit though but nothing broken.

Same for the screen, the top and botom curve leaves the screen intact in case of fall on a flat surface (yes of course if it falls on a stone you ll get a dead screen).

Concerning buttons, i really smash them hard to my friends' sayings (i broke 3 Dreamcast controlers' right shoulder buttons playing crazy taxi) and it has sustained my play for more than a month playing dayly... not bad at all considering the right shoulder is usefull in most of my games. The shoulder buttons seem weak because you can tilt them back and forth a little but they resist (until now that is).

The only problem i get with buttons in fact with the system imo is... the proximity of buttons with the screen, that is so much prone to leaving fingerprints (and i don t have big fingers) on the screen when playing, specialy: right, select, start, square. However, contrary to a thinking that all systems have defective square button due to its position (supposed to not register correctly), i have to say that i observed none on 4 systems. It feels like it is easier to push than the others but besides that, nothing suspicious on our games.

The blurring you feel is due to the non-linear refresh delays of LCD screens. Blacks are much slower to refresh than bright colors, so you might feel like on the back edge of black objects moving over a bright scenary there is some ghosting (that s infact because the blacks take 3 to 5 times more time than whites to leave their place to another color). You have the same problem on 19" LCD monitors.

2 major flaws to me:
- the integrated speaker. It sucks, i cannot listen to that... (it s like if it were covered with silk). Hopefully earphones are here for a much much much better experience , and with shielded ones you don t have UMD spinning static sound

- the tray eject. it s horrible, mine is so punchy that my UMD did a fly once. Seeing how dust might me difficult to remove from one (blow air from the opening might not be verry effective) it s creepy... i allways keep my hand over the tray when ejecting now.


That s it...

Ho, my favourite point is games
some examples:
I played through the whole ridge racers and that was a lot of hours of pleasure.
I have only unlocked half the things of minna no golf and it s a blast and long play to me
I have started digging into Metal Gear Acid (about 7 hours of play) and i feel like i have far more than what i already did to play.

I hope to finish metal gear before march, to play Tales of Eternia (march 3) and Untold Legends (march 24).

Btw, i do intend to buy the DS as soon as a game catches me on it (none that i have seen did: pokemon, mario, wario, kimi no tame shineru and nintendo's ridge racer). The system is solid, but i have problems with my sight ... i cannot play if it is not totally unfold (i have problem focusing on a screen otherwise, and when going to the other i feel lost, like when you look at a DC VMS and then focus back to the game).
I didn t have any problem when i was a kid playing game and watch but it is now.

For games, I have faith in castlevania, super princess peach or the real mario DS and an enormous faith in Yoshi's touch and go (i have seen gameplay footage and... when this one is out i think i have a DS) .

That was long and i guess painfull to read :P but there might be something valuable for you in there

Highlander67 said:

I appreciate the compliments guys. Yeah, I really had high hopes for the PSP. I just can't seem to get past the feeling it's gonna break easily. I think I'll wait until they maybe bring out a new revision that may address some of the concerns with the unit.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Oh, and that analog stick is totally unusable. I tried...I really did..and I just can't figure out how you're supposed to play anything on it. The people criticizing the DS's lack of analog stick...it's obvious a couple of them haven't tried the "alternative. The d-pad's fine though. the right button is far more responsive and solid feeling than the square button.

I have'nt played with UMD's too much though so no comment on them.

To summarize:

Positves about the Sony PSP: 33 words

Negatives about the Sony PSP: 297 words


Welcome to the wonderful world of Sony quality control.