Thread: Sony PSP N1000

The PSP has changed little since its inception - a slim-down here; a slightly tweaked screen there. The slide-out. shrunken, online-orientated Go, aka the PSP-N1000, is a whole new pro osition, however.

First up, the UMD drive has gone, replaced by 16GB of onboard storage and a card slot. A smaller, 3.8-inch screen now slides up to reveal the D-pad, analogue nub and buttons. It also adds Bluetooth connectivity to the usual Wi-Fi.

With the shift from UMD to downloads, Sony obviously wants to go head to head with the iPhone/Touch and Apple's game-stuffed App Store. Proprietory discs and shops made of bricks are out. Games bought or rented online that are ready to play in a trice are in.

If you've got a big UMD library, you might want to wait and see what Sony offers existing PSP users. It's hinted that it will bring in some kind of sweetener for anyone trading in their old PSP and assures us that most of the back catalogue will be available for download presumably for free if you already own the relevant UMDs.

The ideal would be some sort of software to convert your UMDs for Go play, but as that would raise all manner of piracy issues for Sony, don't hold your breath.



There's no 3GS-style performance boost for the Go and no hardware changes that affect gameplay - the joystick, buttons and so on are all in roughly the same place, and gaming feels exactly the same, once you get used to the shoulder buttons being slightly obscured by the open screen.

Dropping half an inch of screen width is not a great innovation, even though the resolution remains the same. There's no boost to battery life either, but at least ditching the UMD drive means fewer moving parts that could fail, while booting from flash storage speeds up loading.times with games a touch.

To buy games, you need to sign up for a PlayStation Network ID Then, browse the online store for games and,videos before downloading them,straight to your hard drive, PS3 owners can also dock with the mothership via USB and download,files to that before synching with your Go.

Additional features? Link a headset via Bluetooth and the built-in Skype app turns your Go into a free Wi-Fi phone. With its extra storage, the Go is a more serious multimedia device than its predecessors, and the superb Xross Media Bar offers easy access to your movies, music, pics and games. The music player sounds slightly louder and clearer than before, while pictures and video look great on the crisp screen, even with the lost inches, but our unit was rather picky about movie formats. Sony has made the PSP Go a multimedia device fit to trade blows with the iPod Touch. The crucial question is whether it can match the smart hardware with an online store of sufficient size and quality. As it stands, you'd be ill advised to trade in your existing PSP for one with a smaller screen and no backwards compatibility. Our advice is to wait and see ...