PSP - Are they worth it?

dulpit

So here's the story: I recently started working as part of 6 month work placement with college, so i have money for the first time in a while Anyway, it's about an hour to and from the place on buses, which are fierce boring... I was thinking of buying a decent mp3 player that plays videos (creative zen v or the like) so i could watch various videos and stuff i have on my pc in the mornings especially (where traffic is haevier and thus, longer to get to work)

So i was searching around, pricing stuff when someone suggested i should get a PSP. I already have an MP3 player (iRiver H10 - 5 GB, bit small but other than that its the berries, love it) so the logic is that i could hang onto that, get a PSP and be able to watch videos and play games and stuff...

So here are my questions (i don't know a whole lot about them tbh):

1. Can you move videos (primarily DivX) from PC onto PSP
2. Is it intended for this or do you have to download 3rd party software?
3. Is the PSP good as a gaming device?
4. It's been out a while, is it going to be with us for much longer?
5. Are the memory card things big?
6. Are the memory card things expensive?
7. Anything else i should know?
8. Is it true you can surf the net on it if you have wireless bb?

As i said, i don't know an awful lot (i've played one once or twice..) just looking for advice/opinions from owners or people who know about them...

No DivX, you have to convert files to MP4 before it will play them.
The memory sticks at the moment go up to about 4Gb, with larger ones coming soon.
Yes it will surf the web if you have wireless broadband, and it will probably be around for a good while yet.

thebman

Watching video's on a bus is no fun IMO. I found with my iPod Video that you just don't enjoy it as much.

1) Not without conversion (Maybe a 3rd party app can do it).
2) see 1, it supports MP4 AFAIK.
3) Not as good as a DS IMO.
4) Yeah, it has another few years in it.
5) no, they have good storage but they aren't large physically.
6) Yes IMO but you can buy cheaply from ebay (they are generally pirate versions)
7) Check out the third party apps (homebrew) that you can get online for PS3. You should be careful about firmware version however as Sony try to prevent homebrew from running on PSP with updates to firmware.
8) Yes and it even supports Flash movies (youtube etc..).

You can get a DS with an adaptor to play music/movies on it. Its not much good at movies IMO but it makes a decent music player and you can get an emulator to play GBA games on it then aswell. The DS also has a web browser available (to purchase) but it does not support Flash.

steviec

1. Can you move videos (primarily DivX) from PC onto PSP
You need to convert it first

2. Is it intended for this or do you have to download 3rd party software?
You'll need free software, such as PSPVideo9

3. Is the PSP good as a gaming device?
Yes, it has a lot of great unique games and solid conversions of most PS2 best sellers.

4. It's been out a while, is it going to be with us for much longer?
There's talk of a redesign in the way Nintendo have done with their handhelds, but the internal hardware isn't going to change for a while yet.

5. Are the memory card things big?
I think the packages you can buy come with either 32Mb or 1Gig sticks

6. Are the memory card things expensive?
A quick ebay search shows 2 gig sticks going for £15-20 buy it now including delivery - it's a lot more expensive on the high street though.

7. Anything else i should know?
It's got a great games catalogue ( http://www.metacritic.com/games/psp/scores/ ) and is very comfortable to use and has a great screen. It is however a little bulky and the battery life isn't great at about 4-6 hours. As long as it's charged up fully it'll do you for most journeys but I've mostly used it around college and places where I can plug it in anyway.

8. Is it true you can surf the net on it if you have wireless bb?
Yes but it's not as good as it sounds. Surfing without a keyboard and mouse is very awkward plus the system doesn't have much RAM which makes more intensive websites with a lot of images work quite badly on it.

dulpit

Cheers for the quick replies... So would you think that its a viable alternative to a video mp3 player (for the video part, not the music)... Size doesn't matter, it can live in my bag... And i don't want a DS thank you very much, brother has one, its grand but not what i'm after...

anto1208

dulpit wrote:

1. Can you move videos (primarily DivX) from PC onto PSP
2. Is it intended for this or do you have to download 3rd party software?
3. Is the PSP good as a gaming device?
4. It's been out a while, is it going to be with us for much longer?
5. Are the memory card things big?
6. Are the memory card things expensive?
7. Anything else i should know?
8. Is it true you can surf the net on it if you have wireless bb?

...

I think if your travelling every day its well worth it , i used to travel alot and loved having mine now i dont travel and had my PSP stolen so i didnt replace it , but its well worth it .

1. Yes you need to get a mem card with it, psp deals now include mem card normally and you just copy and paste your vids onto it .
2.it is ment to do this , but to veiw th evids it has to be in a certain format psp video 9 is free and will convert them for you .
3. Yes very good think PS2 in your pocket
4.yea i cant see it been beaten for a long time
5.mem cards are normally 524mb or 1 gb but go up to 4 gb ( the size of the files affects the quality but i normally had about 20 or 30 mp3's and about 10 south parks or family guy on mine at all times ( 1gb card)
6.i think a psp with a 1 gb card is now only 150 euro !!
7.not really it plays games , video , mp3's photos surfs the net . should pass an hour away in the mornings.
8.yes

dulpit

anto1208 wrote:

5.mem cards are normally 524mb or 1 gb but go up to 4 gb ( the size of the files affects the quality but i normally had about 20 or 30 mp3's and about 10 south parks or family guy on mine at all times ( 1gb card)

Would this not make the card too full for saving games? or are the save game sizes small?

steviec

dulpit wrote:

Would this not make the card too full for saving games? or are the save game sizes small?

Save games are generally relatively tiny in comparison to movies and music. I couldn't even tell you what the average size is but it's generally in the kilobytes rather than megabytes. Put it this way - the PS2 has an 8MB memory card and it copes ok, while the smallest card you'd get for the PSP would be 32MB but in reality you're looking at 512, 1024 or even 2048MB so the save games are a tiny fraction of this.

It's still quite small by movie player standards though, you can probably expect to be swapping movies on and off it quite regularly if you're going to be watching many. I think one full tv episode is about 150Mb at decent quality for the PSP screen size, but you can reduce this a lot if you're willing to sacrifice video quality.

JoeJC

Hey,
I got a PSP not too long ago.

I bought a used PSP + GTA Vice City Stories for 149.99E at Gamestop on Henry St. There is no difference between a new or used psp. I also got a 2gb memory card for 70E, but get one on Ebay for cheap.

Internet is OK with wireless. Tad slow.
For videos just download psp video 9/ or image converter 2.
For Music its very good once you use the remote.

Well worth it as the screen is deadly, battery isnt too bad- but could be improved on, games are class too(and graphics are good). good games( MGS: portable ops, GTAs, Virtua Tennis etc...)

The DS is a heap of crap, never ever buy one. Best of luck!

scooochie4

JoeJC wrote:

The DS is a heap of crap, never ever buy one

Bull****! In terms of gaming its much better than a psp. Obviously, in terms of media etc its not as good as a psp.

Getting back to the topic, a psp is only worth it if you can hack it and install custom firmware. Otherwise its a waste of money.

Also, there is a homebrew app called PsPlayerMT which plays some avi files without the need to convert

andyps2.5

Overall No. get a ps3 it has better games. Only get the psp if your on the move a lot.

o1s1n

JoeJC wrote:

Hey,

The DS is a heap of crap, never ever buy one. Best of luck!

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Well there's the stupidest comment I've heard today. And on what authority are you making that sweeping statement? I take it you've played every game in the DS library? My arse.
You really don't have a clue what you're talking about. The DS is far superior to the PSP. But anyway, that's going off topic...

OP, the PSP isn't doing so well in the games department. It has a few decent ones but not enough in my opinion to actually warrant buying one. The one thing I WOULD buy one for is emulation on the move. Especially MAME. But it's not worth the price tag for just that.

Mossy Monk

scooochie4 wrote:

a psp is only worth it if you can hack it and install custom firmware. Otherwise its a waste of money.

What can I say to this. I think you put it best when you said Bull****! :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Retr0gamer

I think he has a point. I hardly ever used my PSP until I installed custom firmware. It just didn't have as many great games as the DS. I'm now only using it to play PS1 games and the very odd time a PSP game. The DS has a much wider choice of usually far superior games compared to the PSP. However if you are the type to only buy 3 or 4 games then the PSP should be a fine purchase. It's just that the DS with some kind of flash card is a better gaming machine with so decent multimedia functionality. The main seller for me is the battery life. I've never gotten more than 3 and a half hours out of my PSP while the DS battery lasts for ages and is far more suitable as a portable console.

~Marky~

I hardly ever use my psp at all its to big to carry around with you and there is not many good games for it all..
And most of the games that are on it I already have for my ps2 at least with the ds you get totally different games for it..
I do like playing emulators on the psp though its good for that

o1s1n

~Marky~ wrote:

I do like playing emulators on the psp though its good for that

Well lets not forget that DS has Nes, Snes and Megadrive emulation. Snes and Megadrive aren't 100% yet but they're getting there.

The only big advantage the PSP has emulation wise as I mentioned is MAME. (Well, there's also n64 but who'd want that Are there even enough buttons?)

So, before I get even more away from the point, it is my estimation that PSPs are currently not worth it.

If the price comes down that maybe who knows.

Retr0gamer

o1s1n wrote:

Well lets not forget that DS has Nes, Snes and Megadrive emulation. Snes and Megadrive aren't 100% yet but they're getting there.

SNES and Megadrive emulation are far from perfect on the PSP either. Very few new games are running properly on mame either. Expect to be playing 1942 and bubble bobble if you are lucky rather than Ghouls n' Ghosts, Mars Matrix and Donpachi.

PS1 emulation is however practically perfect other than a few uncompatible games. It's great playing G-Darius on the bus. I've got it perfected now where a game from start to credit sequence lasts until my stop

o1s1n

Retr0gamer wrote:

PS1 emulation is however practically perfect other than a few uncompatible games. It's great playing G-Darius on the bus. I've got it perfected now where a game from start to credit sequence lasts until my stop

Ah yes, ps1 emulation. I have to admit, that would be nice to have on a handheld.

G-Darius is a game I never did buy. I remember it came on a demo with The Official Uk Playstation Magazine years ago. Really loved it. Must get around to buying it some day.