Abby and Win’s Blog

Posts Tagged ‘sony’

My mother-in-law bought me a PSP Go for Christmas, thanks Mommy! I’ve had for almost a month now. So far it’s great. But first, let me just say that I came from a PSP 2000. I love the console but I didn’t play it as much so I sold it last year. Now the PSP Go comes out and I started to miss my PSP. I had a choice between the PSP 3000 or the Go. So I spent a few days to weeks trying to figure out which to get. I heard both sides and I have my reasons.

Here are the reasons not to get the PSP Go and some notes as to why I still went with the PSP Go.

1. More expensive. (It’s free for me since it’s a gift.)
2. Can’t sell downloaded games when you’re done with them as oppose to old UMD games. (I never sold any of my UMDs either even after I was done with them.)
3. Not all games are available for download. (I’m more of a classic guy. I like playing older titles.)
4. New games aren’t available the same day as UMD versions are released. (As I stated above, the new titles aren’t such a big deal to me. I have a PS3, Wii, 360, iPhone, Google OS phone – so the PSP won’t be my primary gaming console let alone the only portable gaming console I have.)
5. Frequent deals on UMD version games versus the downloaded games. (See #4 and I’m a patient person.)
6. The controls are awkwardly placed. (As with any new console, we all have to get used to the newly shaped controller. You can also use the “claw” position when playing the PSP.)
7. Smaller screen size. (No big deal for me.)
8. 802.11 B only. (I know it doesn’t support at least G or N, I doubt the PSP can process that big of information even if it did. Also, Sony’s servers are slow most of the times, even if it had the capability of 54mbps, I doubt you’ll be downloading at that speed anyway.)

Here are reasons why I like the PSP Go over the old series.

1. Smaller. It’s more portable and fits easier in my pockets.
2. Lighter. Not that much lighter, but lighter.
3. Downloaded content. I hated UMDs. I hated carrying them around. I’ve lost too many in the past. With downloaded content, I don’t have to worry about losing games. I can re-download them.
4. Bluetooth. You can connect headsets and the PS3 controller.
5. Pause a game any time. This feature is great. I can pause a game any time without having to look for a saving point. Of course you can only do this one game at a time.
6. 16GB internal memory. It’s plenty to begin with. I’ve downloaded a few games and demos and still have 10GB of space left.

Other things I noticed.

• It took a little over 2 hours to download God of War (1.3GB) and 34 minutes to install. If you have a PS3, use it to download the content and extract – it is so much faster.
• Downloading content from PSN is noticeably slow whether on my PS3 or PSP.
• There is no L2 or R2 buttons on the PSP. You may run into problems with PS1/2 games such as Twisted Metal and the Street Fighter Alpha series – they use L2 and R2 buttons. You may have to reassign them.
• When connected to OS X, it mounts as if it’s an external storage device. Transferring data shouldn’t be a problem. No official software from Sony is available if you want to use your Mac and download from the PSN website (of course).

So far I like it. Many others don’t like it but for what I need and use it for, it fits me just fine. Here are a few pics next to the old PSP.

A couple of weeks ago Borders bookstores had a sale on the Sony PRS-505 eBook ready. I decided to pick one up. I didn’t need one but I’m starting to get a couple of eBooks so for the price, I though it would be worth it to check out. After opening it, I didn’t realize how light and thin it was. The device felt sturdy and the text are easy to read. The battery life on it is great as well. Mac users can use Calibre to transfer books to the device or use a SD card/ Memory Stick with a card reader. So far everything seemed good. Here’s where it started to become impractical for me.

I wanted to use this with my small collection of eBooks – most are in PDF format. Everyone has noted that PDF files do not display well but you can convert them to other formats like EPUB, LRF, or MOBI which Calibre can do for you. I’ve tried it and noticed some improvements but some sentences wrapped too early. It’s not a big deal though but STRIKE 1.

Most, if not all my eBooks are reference books. I didn’t realize that there is no search feature on this model. Reference books are useless if I can’t search for things. Granted it has bookmarks, it’s less efficient if I can’t search – STRIKE 2.

I recently bought 40 Years of X-Men on DVD and thought wouldn’t this be great to have on the PRS-505. Again, the files are in PDF. The pages would not get larger as I increase the font size because it’s a comic book (images). I even tried to convert them to another format. The text in the bubbles were hard to read and the watermark on the pages didn’t help any either – STRIKE 3.

I’m not saying that it’s a bad eBook reader. For $200, it’s a great basic one. If you can still get one at that price, I would recommend getting one if you are looking for one. For what I need it for, it just won’t work.

Luckily, the Borders where I bought it from was kind enough to return it.