Recommend me a PMP

Khannie

Left my PSP on a plane during the week. Stolen. Scum. I'd loved that thing for years, literally. So now I need a replacement. All I ever used the PSP for was watching videos.

What I'm looking for:

Decent battery life (8-10 hours or better)
Plays x264, xvid and divx
8GB or better
Good sized screen (4 inches or better)
Not too expensive (250 or less)

I'm open to suggestion. Finding it hard looking through archos this and cowon that to decide what's best.

Khannie

Well....it turns out the company travel insurance will cover me so I'm relieved. Considering the PSP slim n' lite but I'm still open to suggestion if anyone has any.

Kintarō Hattori

To be honest Khannie I don't think there is much out there at the moment that is as versatile as the PSP.


The Creative Zen is pretty jam packed but it'll most likely break on you at some point as it's not the most reliable.

The Sony players have great sound quality but the screen is small and they are extremely fussy in regards to video codec support.

Archos 6 series players can be had at great prices at the moment but personally I've never been a big fan of Archos. I never thought image quality was great.

Last on the list are the iPods but they won't playback your chosen video format and you are tied to itunes if you want to do anything.

Khannie

Well....that covers it very nicely. Thanks very much. PSP slim n' lite it is.

I still have to covert video for the PSP, but I don't mind doing that. I have a quadcore CPU so I can have a whole season converted to PSP format in 3-4 hours.

pleasant Co.

The Cowon O2 fits your profile down to the ground...however it's not due out until october... for more read here: http://www.dapreview.net/comment.php?comment.news.4317

Kintarō Hattori

Hmnn that does look tastey Mactard, any word on likely pricing? I had an A2 many years ago and loved it to bits.

The Cowon that Mactard has linked too Khannie does look quite nice. Will you play many games on the PSP or are you using it purely for music/video?

pleasant Co.

I'm still waiting on an official price list but expect it to range between 200 and 400 depending on capacity - 8/16/32gb

Khannie

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

The Cowon that Mactard has linked too Khannie does look quite nice. Will you play many games on the PSP or are you using it purely for music/video?

It certainly does look quite nice. I've no intention of playing any PSP games on the PSP tbh. I do like that I can use it for non-video stuff (mostly emulators) but that Cowon looks superb.

I have the youngfellas PSP to tide me over for the moment, plus, the insurance money will probably take some time to come in. At the very least I think I'll wait to see some reviews of that one Mactard linked to when it comes out.

pleasant Co.

We'll just have to wait and see if cowon want to send me a review model or not then wont we :P

Khannie

Hmmmm....one of the lads in here brought in his acer aspire one netbook today.....Looks very tasty and is a fully fledged PC running linux (which I use on my desktop anyway). With the 6 cell battery these bad boys look like they'd last around 4-5 hours. Of course it would remove any issues with codecs and what not.

What I'm wondering is: Why get a PMP instead of one of these bad boys?

1.6GHz processor
512MB / 1GB ram
8GB SSD
SD slot for storage upgrade (around 50 quid for a 16G SD card).

Honestly, I'm very tempted.

Kintarō Hattori

Khannie wrote: »

Hmmmm....one of the lads in here brought in his acer aspire one netbook today.....Looks very tasty and is a fully fledged PC running linux (which I use on my desktop anyway). With the 6 cell battery these bad boys look like they'd last around 4-5 hours. Of course it would remove any issues with codecs and what not.

What I'm wondering is: Why get a PMP instead of one of these bad boys?

1.6GHz processor
512MB / 1GB ram
8GB SSD
SD slot for storage upgrade (around 50 quid for a 16G SD card).

Honestly, I'm very tempted.

Heh Heh they aren't bad alright. A mate of mine bought one and installed XP (better battery life). The only thing going against it is poorer battery life than a PMP and it's size.

But then again it's alot more versatile.

Khannie

Yeah, it's a tough trade off tbh. I like the long battery life of a PMP / PSP, especially for long plane journeys (which I do more than most), but a fully fledged PC with a crackin' resolution and a large screen. Hmmmmmm.

I'll report back on what I decide.

Thanks for all your help lads.

Voodu Child

If you're getting another PSP, wait for the new one (PSP-3000), its got a faster/better screen. The current ones have very bad screens compared to a good PMP.

Gumbo

voodoo_child wrote: »

If you're getting another PSP, wait for the new one (PSP-3000), its got a faster/better screen. The current ones have very bad screens compared to a good PMP.

when is the new version being released in ireland?
im about to buy a PSP any day now, but have just heard about the new version through this forum!

Voodu Child

kceire wrote: »

when is the new version being released in ireland?
im about to buy a PSP any day now, but have just heard about the new version through this forum!

Supposedly they're available now, the launch was Oct 15th or 16th.

samhail

i invested in the Archos AV700, going back about 2 years now. got it for Australia.
100gb hard drive. was somewhat limited with the files it could play, i found out after.
I liked it. never had a problem with the battery lifetime.
It has a 7in widescreen and could be connected to a TV to either play back the videos or you could record directly from tv (set up schedules to record etc... even had an IR controller linked up to the schedule recorder that would change the channel at a specific time)

I ended up using it as an MP3 player which was kinda daft since it was like 5 or 6in wide i think.

It is more of a DVR (digital video recorder) than a PMP though.
i still have it knocking around now.

Gumbo

voodoo_child wrote: »

Supposedly they're available now, the launch was Oct 15th or 16th.

thanks, i will have a look in my kocal gamestop tomorrow.
is there any tell tail signs to show its a 3000 model?

Voodu Child

kceire wrote: »

thanks, i will have a look in my kocal gamestop tomorrow.
is there any tell tail signs to show its a 3000 model?

The first ones on the market will only be available in bundle form (ie a big box with a game included) afaik. So it should be easy to spot (it'll likely have a PSP-3000 product code anyway).

Eventually they'll release a stand-alone model (ie without a game) but not until the old model is sold out....count on a couple of months before seeing it.

Gumbo

voodoo_child wrote: »

The first ones on the market will only be available in bundle form (ie a big box with a game included) afaik. So it should be easy to spot (it'll likely have a PSP-3000 product code anyway).

Eventually they'll release a stand-alone model (ie without a game) but not until the old model is sold out....count on a couple of months before seeing it.

picked up a PSP 3000 with batman lego in gamestop in charlestown shopping centre in finglas yesterday for €199, i traded in my old PS2 console and games. then went and couldnt connect it to my wireless router and fecked up my internet connection in doing so :mad:

JohnK

Seems to be a few issues with the 3000 http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/10/22/psp_3000_scan_lines/