PSP Slim Hands on at Gamestop

September 1st, 2007, 16:16 Posted By: wraggster

Heres an excerpt:

The new PSP is a slimmer, lighter version of the original, with a few new features. The system plays the exact same games, but now it has a video output port that lets you connect the PSP to an external display, such as an HDTV, for big-screen playback. The system also has a simplified UMD loading tray, 32MB more system memory, lower power consumption, a smaller battery, and can now charge via USB. The new PSP will replace the current system this September. Systems will be available in Piano Black, Ice Silver, and Ceramic White. They'll come in various retail packages with a variety of bundle options that include pack-in games, UMD movies, memory sticks, and, in the case of the white PSP, a Darth Vader silk-screened battery cover.




The Ice Silver PSP will ship with the Daxter PSP Entertainment Pack.

While it was nice to check out the new PSP's redesigned features at E3, what we really wanted to do was pull out a few games and test how the new portable handles load times with its extra built-in memory and fancy UMD-caching system. That agenda was first in our minds when we opened up the shipping box, but we got sidetracked when we noticed that the background display color on the new PSP was different from the color on our original PSPs. It turns out that our new PSP actually has more background-theme color options, 28 compared to the old PSP's 13 color options. We've asked Sony if the new colors are available only on the new PSP, or if they'll be included in the 3.60 firmware update, which is the version we had on the new PSP. Unfortunately, our Sony contacts haven't gotten back to us yet.




Sony has finally responded to consumer demand for more PSP background-color themes.

After solving the color mystery, we were distracted from memory testing once again. The new PSP feels like it offers better controls, and so we decided to examine the controller inputs to see if we could detect any physical reasons that would justify this feeling. We didn't have to look very hard. All we needed to do was turn the system flat to see that the buttons on the D pad are raised slightly higher on the new system, which makes game control so much better.




The directional pad buttons on the new PSP (left) stand higher for improved control.

Finally, we got to the memory-load testing. You'll find the new "UMD Cache" option in the System Settings Menu. According to the scrolling description, enabling the UMD Cache will "reduce the frequency at which the system reads from the UMD." We enabled the UMD-caching feature and tested a few games to see if it had any affect on load times. UMD caching requires an initial memory load, so we also tested how fast the games could load up levels after we first started and exited a game to preload the data into system memory. We had time to test out only three games, but early results indicate that the additional system memory and UMD caching really do help speed up initial game launches, as well as subsequent level reloads.

More info and screens

There are 10 comments - Join In and Discuss Here