considering a PSP - thoughts?

i have, through the good graces of my manager, come into possession of a 250 dollar bestbuy gift certificate.

i have had a few ideas of things to buy, such as my first ipod or more external HD storage (always nice).

one of the things that crossed my mind was a PSP. so i had a few thoughts and a few questions...

i just picked up a PS3 a few weeks back and i know there's some sort of remote play option for a PS3/PSP combo. how exatly does this work? what can you do with that?

none of the stats i saw specifically said you could view image files from a memory stick. i'm assuming it can be done (as with the PS3) but i'm looking for confirmation. can i use the PSP as a sort of mobile slideshow?

how is the thing as a portible music player - other than it's clunky size compared to even an ipod classic? does the playlist stuff work pretty much te same as it does on the PS3? and do the memory sticks protrude much from the PSP when inserted?

how is battery life now? i understand it used to be pretty dreadful. is the new slim model pretty decent? does the thing last considerably longer when using media off of a stick rather than a UMD?


these things are pretty important to me as i already have a DS for pure portable gaming (and adore it). of course i'd buy a few games for it, but it wouldn't necessarily be a gaming machine 100% of the time.

I used to have one of the original ones, unless they have improved it, the music player functionality isn't very good, just clunky menus. The memory sticks don't stick out when inserted. You can view images that you put on the memory stick but if I recall you have to put them in a folder with a specific name.

The reason I sold mine was simply because there weren't any good games out at the time, except Lumines. I never had a problem with battery life and the screen looked awesome. I am thinking about picking one of the new ones up so I can try out that remote play, Crisis Core, and God of War.

cool - thx for the response.

the memory card sticking out thing was really bugging me - knowing it doesn't makes me feel better for using it as a portable music player (at least for work and such).

I had one for about three months and sold it off.

The only thing I wound up doing with it was hacking it with custom firmware and loading up a few emulators.

Got a fair amount of play out of it, but it really gets old after a while.

I had a DS before that, and I miss my DS to this day.

well...

there i go being impulsive again.

i spent some real time and thought and research deciding what i should spend this money on. the PSP was an option, but i got a shiny new nintendo DS lite in cobalt blue. also picked up advance wars: days of ruin. this leaves me a tidy sum to put towards another external hard drive for the macbook it also leaves me a spare DS (the old school one, also blue) for my wife to use so we can play the multitude of two player games i already have.

Derek, part of this is due to your last line. like i said, i do adore my DS. it is really a fantastic little system, the new one will allow me and my wife to enjoy it on another level - and probably even my older son who is about 3 and a half. i can see him picking it up within a year or two for sure.

My portable gaming story:
I started off with a DS, I picked it up in America on a holiday 6 month before they were out in the uk. I had it for around 9 month then traded it in for a PSP the day they came out. then 2 years later (august 2007)i bought the DS light after being glued to my friends DS and the look was sexy but again 5 month later that got sold! I still have my PSP but have not played it for god knows how long as haven't really got the money to buy any games for it as i prefer to by them for my xbox 360.

So after all that my opinion is dont go for the DS or PSP unless you really want to have a portable console and willing to investing in it (unlike me) if not I think you should wait if no expiration date on the voucher till you have some thing you need witch could come in handy.

i'm guessing you wrote that after reading the first post and not the update, eh?

I have a DS already, but I am considering getting a PSP because the games look interesting enough that I would play them even if I was sitting at home where I could easily play my PS3. I am not sure if that would really ever happen though...