Monday, January 09, 2006

The Sony PSP So, for a work project, I received the very onerous job of dinking around with a Sony PSP - a choice assignment that certainly solidifies my geek credentials. Anyhoo, the mission was to evaluate the PSP overall user interface and its chops as a personal broadband device. Here are my impressions: The good stuff. Best display I've seen on a hand held device. Absolutely stunning. The response and tactile feedback of the controls/buttons/etc. is also very very very good. The thing must have a screaming processor. Things happen very quickly - unless you're accessing the UMD player (more about that later). It's probably the single most gorgeous hand held device I've ever used. To use a guy term - it is absolutely cherry. The iffy stuff. Connecting to a wireless network is not as easy as it could be - but since gamers are its initial core audience, that's o.k. But it needs to be a little more seamless for the general audience. If the device wants to be more than just a gaming device, it needs a keyboard. And there are some very nifty ways that they could build in a keyboard. Sony has the expertise - their Clie line of PDA's offered some of the best form/function/usability out there. The bad stuff. The PSP sucks at holding a wireless signal - or at least a signal that's at 72% of strength. The PSP I purchased at Best Buy required a firmware update in order to pick up internet functionality such as a browser or RSS feeds. The manual absolutely sucks - no real information. I had to do all my sleuthing on the net - that's how I found out about the firmware update with browser functionality. Doing anything with the browser but w/out a keyboard is a pain in the patootie. This next one is a deal killer - The thing has no on board storage. You have to buy Sony memory cards - which are not cheap. It comes with a 32 Mb card which is absolutely minimal. If you have the big bucks, you can buy a 1 Gb memory card. But that's ridiculous. The video ipod comes with 40 Gb to 80 Gb hard drives. It's clear that Sony deliberately made the no hard drive decision for three reasons: Push sales of their proprietary memory sticks. Push sales of their little UMD mini disks - that's how the movies and games are distributed. Oh - and BTW, blank UMD's are not available to end users. So you can't make your own UMD disks. DRM protection - it is quite clear that Sony will cripple their products in order to "protect" their content (re: the recent Sony CD rootkit debacle). As a result of that myopic corporate suit thinking, they have totally crippled their product. In summary - this device is a poster child for the best of Sony and the worst of Sony all wrapped into one. With one or two changes, it could be a killer device - I'd make it my primary device in a heartbeat - well - if it weren't Sony since I'm officially boycotting Sony - but then again, if they made those changes, they wouldn't be Sony. They'd be an enlightened company. 4:47:46 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2006 Stephanie A. Kesler. Last update: 1/23/2006; 7:31:06 PM.