PSP Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron Entertainment Pack - Ceramic White Video Games
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 Rating: - PSP Slim&Lite ---> awesome!!
So I have owned the Sony PSP Star Wars Battlefront Renegade Squadron Entertainment Pack - Ceramic White for about 3 weeks now. I never owned the original PSP, and mostly got this for "remote play" capabilities with the PS3 (e.g. remote access to your PS3 using the PSP and a wifi connection). Simply put, the PSP is AWESOME. Seriously.

The Good:

1. Aesthetics/Design/Construction.
The white slim looks and feels great. I briefly owned the black slim before returning it and getting the white one. The black looked slick, but it was a real fingerprint magnet. The white looks better, very sleek and clean. Fingerprints do not show up on it much either, which is great. The silver slim was just too cheap looking, like the silver was spray painted on, so I never considered it. Nice how the back is totally flat also, unlike the old psp. The non-spring door battery cover is fine. I was worried after reading reviews of how it is cheap feeling and fragile, but it's just fine. It is easy to open/close, gives a nice "snap" when it opens or closes, won't break if you're not rough with it (care is required), and eliminates worries about the spring door mechanism from malfunctioning. I never had an original PSP 1000, but the slim feels solid and not cheap at all to me.

2. Screen.
Very bright, nice 480x272 resolution. Movies and games just look great on it.

3. Music.
MP3s (and WMA supported also) sound great on the PSP. The visualization has about six different "patterns" that are interesting. The interface looks good, better in fact than the music player interface on the PS3, and features all the important info, and can be toggled on/off also. Recent firmware now allows for music to be played back while viewing photos.

4. Video.
Ability to run full 480x272 video off of files stored on the memory stick was a contentious issue in the first couple years, as Sony had evidently crippled video file on the memory stick to a max resolution of 320x240 in order to "encourage" users to buy overpriced UMDs. Several months ago, Sony saw the error of its ways and relented to user requests and now the PSP is fully able to play back 480x272 (the PSP's native resolution) video off of videos stored on your memory stick. Using the freeware "psp video 9," you can create video files ranging from 700mb (~1.5hrs video) to 1gb (~2hrs) that look and sound as good as a UMD movie.

Functionality is great too, with the newer firmwares you can search through your video file for scenes by varying intervals (1,2, or 5 minute), which is great since your own video files will be a single file. This is really not to be underestimated in its usefulness, plus it is really cool to use!

5. Photos.
The photo viewer is pretty cool as well, but could use a bit more customization. You can view standard file types (jpg, gif, bmp, and tiff I believe) and have a few slideshow and zoom options. The background of photos that are not 480x272 resolution is white, which cannot be changed to another color (like black), which is not a big deal but I hope Sony will allow you to use a black background in the future.

6. Games.
This is of course the main feature of the PSP. I wasn't expecting the games to be too good, but there are quite a few very good games. So far, my favorites are: Silent Hill Origins, Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty/Vice City Stories, NBA 08, Outrun 2006, Burnout Legends, FIFA 08, Madden 08, Legend of Heroes, Star Wars Battlefront: Renegade Squadron, Daxter, Wipeout Pure, and Siphon Filter: Dark Mirror. You would be amazed at the graphics, gameplay, story, audio (music/voiceovers) this little system is capable of! Some of these are just great games.

7. Remote Play/Location Free Player.
This is the original reason I bought the PSP, to remotely (via wifi) connect to my PS3 and access the music, video, photos, and even games on it. When it works, it is just really really cool. The PS3 interface shows up on the PSP screen (which can be adjusted for quality based on the bandwidth you want to set it to -- there are five different settings), and you can play movies, trailers, photos, audio, even some games (like Lair!) on your PSP. I haven't used Location Free player yet, but basically it is like using a Slingbox on the PSP, so that you can watch TV, access your DVR, etc., on your PSP using a wifi connection. I plan to try it someday for sure.

8. Internet.
You can use the browser to surf the internet on the PSP when you have access to wifi. It works well enough, and the key input system is pretty decent for a non-QWERTY/touchscreen input system.

9. Functionality/Performance.
The much maligned battery life, is really not that bad at all. Using the PSP to listen to mp3s, watch videos, play games, I get about 3-4 hours of usage (depending on how much video/games I watch/play), which gets me through average usage easily. For longer trips, I have the 2200mAh (oem) extended battery which works great and will give me roughly 6-8 hours of usage. Incredible. The battery will stick out the back, but you can go to dealextreme-dot-com and buy a bigger battery cover (black or white) for less than four dollars. Sony will evidently release an official extended battery kit with a bigger battery cover in black and silver (no white though, booo!) for about 45 dollars sometime in the next month or so.

During gameplay, I have never had any slowdown of framerate or crashing EVER. Not once on over 14 games that I now own. Great performance. Videos and music also perform flawlessly. Load times are not that bad, and don't bother me much as it is only in the beginning mostly, and so gameplay during games is very quick.

The XMB (cross media bar) user interface is fantastic and so easy to use and rather stylish as well. Love using it. Video out to your TV is a cool feature that I have not yet used.

The Not-so-good:

1. Fingerprint magnet (black PSP). White one has no issues with this.
2. Cannot change background color to black when viewing photos.
3. Wifi is 802.11b only, no 802.11g (faster) support... yet.
4. Remote play is hit or miss regarding connectivity. Still not easy to connect to the PS3. Hopefully, Sony will improve upon this with updates. Remote on/off of the PS3 works well enough though.
5. Soon to be released extended battery kit will not include a white cover. No biggie, just go to dealextreme-dot-com to find a white one from Hong Kong (cheap too).
6. Limited audio/video codec support, including no DIVX/XVID support yet for videos or AAC for audio. But using PSP Video 9 (freeware) to convert videos works just fine to convert videos of most types into viewable 480x272 (or less if you want) mp4 video.
7. UMD spinning noise is a bit loud/harsh on the ears, but luckily it spins rarely and usually at the beginning of the game or rarely during gameplay (e.g. loading new levels, etc.).
8. Volume on audio/video playback from memory stick is TOO QUIET! Setting "dynamic normalization" under "audio" settings helps it get louder, but still it's too soft. The volume from the speakers is okay but I always use headphones so I cannot really judge it.
9. Expensive assessories. Getting a couple extended batteries, a battery charger, a nice protective case, a screen protector, some UMD cases, headphones, wrist strap, a few games, a nice memory stick pro duo (I got the 8gb one -- you won't want less than that), and the price quickly jumps up to almost PS3 range (easily over 500 dollars).
10. Cool accessories only available in Japan, including a camera, GPS, and DMB (mobile television). I don't really miss those though.


Bottom Line:

As you can judge from my lengthy review, I love my new white PSP slim. It is so fun, versatile, and cool (remote play will impress your friends and family) that you will not regret plopping down some serious cash to build up your PSP slim system!

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