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PSP-Slim Hands On

Posted by Zonk on Tue Jul 17, 2007 10:44 AM
from the lite-vs.-slim dept.
Sony Portables (Games)
fistfullast33l writes "PSPFanboy, a Joystiq blog, has a great closeup of the new PSP redesign. Photos show the old PSP and the new PSP side by side. Modifications include adding more RAM (up to 64MB), extended battery life, a new UMD loading door, removal of the IR port (Sony really hates infrared), and a redesigned headphone jack to support video output. Sony confirmed that you will be able to play movies and games through the video out, but the games can only be viewable via component, not composite cables. Also, 0okm has some nice pictures of the new PSP internals as well as a manual snapshot showing button layout (the wireless switch was moved) and TV out information." Gamasutra has the news that the slim-line is due out on September 20th in Japan.
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  • Video out (Score:2, Interesting)

    by 68030 (215387)
    It would be nice to see some sort of standardized, low-range, wireless digital video transfer protocol, then let the receiver worry about composite, component, HDMI, etc. I've noticed the references to the terrestrial digital video streams in Europe and the like... Sure would be nice to stick a powerful computer (or in this case console) in another room and a dongle on the DVI out and have a set top box that lets me switch streams like channels, without having to run wires.

    Somehow I doubt that would work we
  • How the hell am I going to screw with people's TVs and them not know it's me if I don't just look like I'm playing a video game?

    WRONG MOVE SONY!

  • No composite video for games?? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by physicsnick (1031656) on Tuesday July 17 2007, @11:04AM (#19888515)
    What the hell? Why not?

    Around where I live (Canada), I've never even seen a TV that takes component cables. Don't virtually all older TVs in North America take only composite? I thought the point of this was to make it into a sort of portable console; what's the point if you can't just plug it into any TV?

    This is so incredibly frustrating. I was all excited [slashdot.org] about the new PSP, and now I find it won't even work on my TV. Why didn't they tell us this in the presentation? Did they think we weren't going to notice?
    • Around where I live (Canada), I've never even seen a TV that takes component cables.
      What the ....? Go to FutureShop, all TVs have had those for years. I think you're confused with something else.

      • Go to FutureShop, all TVs have had those for years.

        How many years? We're not all rich, and we don't all own new HDTVs. I live in a college house with 6 guys, and there are three TVs in our house; none of them take component.

        For it to be a portable console, it should work on any hand-me-down TV. If I'm going to have a TV in my room, I would expect the TV-out to work on it. It's no good if it only works on the new TV in parents' living rooms.

        Mostly I'm just pissed off that Sony lied to us again. For once I was excited about their products, but between

        • I bought a brand new 27" HDTV with component for 300 bucks... if you can throw down 200 bucks for a portable gaming system a tv with component you can grab a new TV. If you're all about hand me downs, maybe you shouldn't be picking up bleeding edge tech?
          • If I can afford a $170 portable gaming system, I may as well pay triple that to replace my TV along with it? Sure, that makes sense.
          • a) If these do exist, please, link. I searched online and I could not find one; what I did find however is a lot of other people looking for the same thing.

            b) They said several times throughout E3, in their main presentation and in various interviews, that it would support TV-out gaming through composite. It does not. They flat out lied.
          • A cheep DVD player or VCR does the same thing for 20-50$.
          • Actually, the fact that the cables will not be included with the unit, as well as the fact that they are supporting both, and thus are likely to be selling both themselves, makes it unlikely that they will be including a converter with the PSP unit itself OR it's add-on cables.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by CastrTroy (595695)
      I live in Canada too, although I find that there are many TVs with component video. However, there's a lot that don't, and even when they do have component cables, they're located in the back of the TV and hooked up to the DVD player. Moving the TV to get to these cables, and then rehooking up the other device when you are done can be really annoying. Meanwhile, most TVs have composite on the front for easy access. I can't even think of why they would need component cables for the PSP. It's not like th
      • I'm not sure why specifically component for games, but the UMD movies are encoded in DVD quality 480p (RTFA), so there might be a reason to allow a higher quality cable connection.
        • Does anybody actually buy UMD movies?
          • I have a couple, and the biggest knock against them was that you could only play them on the tiny PSP with no video out. Sony has decided to rebut that by giving people video out. Now they just need to add some special features and drop the price to an average of $10 and they'll probably attract more attention.
    • Umm.. I live 'in Canada" and I don't even think I know a single person whose "main TV" does not accept component.

      Pretty much any 25" or larger TV made since 1998 has component inputs.
      • See that's just it, I don't want to use it just on my "main TV". Why can't I play games on the TV in my room?
      • You apparently are confusing "component" with "composite"
      • How many of you have bought a TV since '98? I don't know, but I was under the impression that TVs had a operational life of over 10 years. Especially the larger units. Having a composite out isn't too unreasonable. Heck, I think iPods can be fitted with an S-video output via their docks.

    • Re:No composite video for games?? (Score:4, Informative)

      by ZakuSage (874456) on Tuesday July 17 2007, @11:47AM (#19889199)
      Component is required because progressive scan is required for games. Whatever reason they have for necessitating progressive scan, I don't know...
      • "Whatever reason they have for necessitating progressive scan, I don't know..."

        The LCD on the PSP is not interlaced...?
    • WTF? "Around where I live (Canada), I've never even seen a TV that takes component cables" Where the hell do you live, Inuvik? My friends 5 year old TV does component. And yes, I live in Canada. We do have TV's that were made past 1990 up here. That's your big complaint? Buy a freakin converter man. I hope I misread what you said....
    • You can get cables that switch form component to composite without much problems. Although it does add more wire and one extra step to dilute the signal.
    • There will be a composite cable for the PSP, but it only supports video from the UMD or Memory Stick.
  • removal of the IR port (Sony really hates infrared),

    Saying Sony hates infrared is like saying my new flatscreen hates buttons because 95% of them are only on the remote.

    Another technology has replaced it. Why have two means of remote communication on a device?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fistfullast33l (819270)
      Well, seeing as the IR port was useless on the PSP (except for some homebrew that figured out how to turn the PSP into a universal remote), I can see why Sony removed it. But on the PS3, it drives me crazy when trying to use it as a DVD/Bluray player. I can't use my TV remote (Sony also) to control the PS3 because it doesn't have an infrared port. Even worse, the bluetooth remote that Sony makes doesn't have IR on it, so it's only good for hte PS3. It's rather annoying.

  • how did they do it? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by grapeape (137008) <mpope7 AT kc DOT rr DOT com> on Tuesday July 17 2007, @11:39AM (#19889071) Homepage
    The battery shown so far has been a 1200mah one while the one in the current PSP is 1800mah. If thats the case and it still gets a longer battery life, they have achieved quite a bit. Anyone know exactly what changed to get such a huge bump?

    • Re:how did they do it? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17 2007, @11:54AM (#19889305)
      The added RAM means less time spinning the UMD looking for data. The biggest energy sapping system in the PSP is the UMD Drive. With 64mb of RAM, that means you don't need to look stuff up on the disc as often...

  • Summary (Score:5, Informative)

    by suv4x4 (956391) on Tuesday July 17 2007, @12:00PM (#19889393)
    That was a boring article:

    We're very excited.

    The new PSP is much slimmer than the original, but the original is slim too.
    The new PSP is much lighter than the original, but the original is light too.
    The new PSP is much shinier than the original, but the original is shiny too.
    The new buttons "feel better".

    We'll talk a bit about the infrared and composite, but won't test it, or give you our feedback on any of this.

    We're very excited (again).

    The new PSP is much better than the original, but the original is good too.

    THE END
  • What good is more ram anyway? New games certainly can't require more ram than was on the original PSP. Are old games going to know they can use more memory when loading content on a new PSP? Apparently you can't use the PSP for homebrew so really, why bother with more ram?

    Also, the fact that they didn't have tv-out in the first place is probably 90% of why UMD movies were such a stupid idea (you know, aside from having another proprietary format for no reason). And it's especially cute that they call this t

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ch0ad (1127549)
      apparently the new ram will be used to cache data from the umd to speed load/reload times.... or something like that. also (this is just speculation) i expect it will be used in the web browser to avoid so many "out of memory" errors.
    • Interesting. Is Sony going to prevent new games from making explicit use of the extra RAM? Will new games developed with the new PSP in mind run poorly or not at all on the old PSP? Apologies if this were mentioned in TFA - since this is slashdot, I did not RTFA beyond opening it up and seeing that the pictures are blurry.
  • "Close up" indeed. Some one needs to tell them about the macro function on their camera. Cripes.

  • I'm most disappointed by the fact that you still appear to be stuck to the limit of 4GB memory sticks.

    4GB and over cards are coming down in price and it would be great to put one of those big things into this device. To be fair though, it would only be really useful for homebrew (which Sony hates), piracy (which Sony really hates) and movies (which Sony would rather you bought the UMD).

    Still a shame though. Especially when you consider that by the end of this year you'll be seeing £100 mobile phon

    • (as an aside, does anyone know whether you can buy anything that'll allow you to use standard - and significantly cheaper - storage with the memory stick pro duo? I don't own a PSP, but if I do, I'd far rather not pay through the nose for Sony's inflated storage medium)

      Not really sure what you mean...but SanDisk makes a memory stick pro duo for about half the price. I've seen the card used in Sony's cameras and you can find slots for it on HP printers, so the card does have some reusability.

  • Appealing... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by MaWeiTao (908546) on Tuesday July 17 2007, @12:30PM (#19889925)
    I have been thinking about getting a PSP for some time. I have a DS and while I think it's great there are some things that have always bothered me. As much as I like sprite-based 2D games I can't get past the fact that 3D graphics on the DS are generally crap. The games for the DS that are good are great, but some genres in particular are quite lacking. And to this day I still don't like the two screens. The functionality it allows for in some games is great, but it still feels gimmicky. I would much prefer it had a single large screen, and coupled with the touch-screen functionality it would be truly great.

    This updated PSP makes the console particularly appealing. Of course, this is still Sony we're talking about. So I still have some reservations.

    • I would much prefer it had a single large screen, and coupled with the touch-screen functionality it would be truly great.

      Yes, it's a pity the PSP doesn't have a touch screen.

    • Actually, it's been proven to use the TA-085 motherboard, which CAN run homebrew.
      • You're aware that this hasn't shipped yet, right?
          • Can't read that site from work here, however, it's likely a spec sheet / preview sheet based on a preview/press model. Given that Sony is now well known for changing hardware mid-production (see - no more Emotion engine chip) - I wouldn't give these preview specs too much weight until the final products ship.
            • Actually it's a picture of the internals of the new PSP - very similar in fact to the article I linked in the summary regarding 0oku. So it's not actually a press sheet, it's the actual working hardware that they're basing the specs on.
              • His point is that you can't PROVE it will run homebrew until they are in the hands of those who will try. Even if it's the same hardware, there's firmware to worry about. Given Sony's track record in the past with revisions of hacked systems, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if downgrading the firmware on the PSP Slim would brick it.

                It's nothing about fanboi/non-fanboi and everything about spreading potentially false information. We'll know with PROOF if it plays nice with homebrew likely within a f
      • It does NOT use the same motherboard. The TA-085 is a CHIP, not a motherboard, and there's no guarantee that they disn't secure the firmware in some new way. It would be silly to release a new hardware spec and not at least try somthing new to secure it.

    • Re:Other important (non)-feature.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fistfullast33l (819270) on Tuesday July 17 2007, @11:19AM (#19888741) Homepage Journal
      Sony hasn't supported homebrew since PSP firmware 1.0...no reason to expect them to support it now.
    • Just wait until the PSN downloads are fully up and running...there are sure to be plenty of holes found there. No console or handheld has ever been hackproof, hack resistant sure, but the challenge only seems to make the pirates and homebrew crowd work harder.

    • Re:No difference? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fistfullast33l (819270) on Tuesday July 17 2007, @11:36AM (#19888997) Homepage Journal
      The PSP really hasn't lost any body weight.

      If you're going to bash a redesign, at least read the article in the summary:

      The most immediate thing we noticed was how light the system is: the original was in no ways heavy, but the new handheld is certainly much lighter, without making it too feathery.

      Granted, maybe you actually attended E3 and held the device and this is a matter of opinion, but that seems like a pretty dumb statement to make if you haven't.

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