Pink Sony PSP Slim, Part Deux

I speculated about this pretty little toy in a previous post, but now I have one in real life. As a birthday present to myself, I bought one from a reputable US eBay seller several weeks ago, and I was not disappointed. I got a package deal that came with a pink airform case, which fits perfectly. The English-as-second-language content on the case package was also somewhat entertaining.

Simply said, this is a really beautiful gadget. The rose pink color is not at all cloying or cheesy, it’s a softly silvery pink with lavender undertones and subtle pearly glitter. The fit-and-finish is perfect — Sony really does have this part down. The interface is also spectacular, with two theme settings and no fewer than 28 different background color settings. It took only a few minutes for me to set the system language to English, set the the date and time, and start the firmware download upgrade (to v3.30). It found my home wireless network with no problem.

I did have to drop some cash on games and other stuff:

• I found a 4GB memory stick on Amazon.com for around $60. Since I won’t be using this to play UMD movies (games are region-nonspecific, but the Japanese version won’t play north American formatted UMD movies), I wanted enough memory to store a few movies.
• What’s a PSP without games? To begin with, I got one puzzle game and one RPG, Puzzle Quest and Brave Story. I also found WorkTimeFun at Costco for about $15. I’ve played each of these for an hour or three so far, and they are all entertaining in their own ways. I haven’t played any of them enough to do full reviews yet.
• I got the extended battery kit, which will be a great ADD cure for long trips. This normally sells for about $40, but I found one that had been mis-labeled at Best Buy for $24.99, so they had to sell it to me for that price. This battery is a little fatter than the stock battery, so the original pink battery cover won’t fit. However, the extended battery comes with two battery covers that do fit , one black and one silver. The silver one isn’t a bad match with the pink, since the trim on the pink model is silver anyway.

So when does a busy professional/mom/wife have time to play games? Well, I’ve been commuting via express bus for about 1.5 hours each way, and the PSP is a nice alternative to reading. I haven’t loaded any photos or music on it yet, but I have an iPhone so I will probably use the PSP just for games and movies. I have tried out the Internet function on the PSP, and it’s a bit clunky, but better than nothing for those who don’t have another mobile Internet connection. It will be good for game downloads as well, but I haven’t tried that feature yet.

Overall, I give the PSP Slim two thumbs up. Whether you get the US model or the Japanese, I don’t think you will be disappointed. If you don’t like pink, lavender, light blue, or deep red, word on the street is that the newest Japanese color, mint green, will be available in February 08.

Tagged as: games, PSP, Sony