The PSP aka PlayStation Portable has now been on the market for 3 years, with it's upgraded version - the PSP Slim - hitting the market half a year ago. While being a gaming machine, the PSP featured both music and video capabilites from day one, unlike its competitor, the Nintendo DS. These features have gotten quite a few upgrades over the years in form of firmware upgrades and added hardware functionality on the PSP Slim. The question that remains is whether or not the PSP Slim can compete with full blown PMPs if you focus only on its PMP capabilites.
The PSP Slim isn't a dedicated DAP, and that shows. I A/B'ed it with the Cowon D2, both at flat EQ, and I didn't need many songs to notice a pattern of differences. First of all, at high volumes, the PSP Slim distorts the sound noticably. Bass loses detail and start sounding almost like feedback. Vocals sound more high pitched, and it's not an enjoyable experience. However, the volume needed for distortion this bad is for above what anyone should listen to, as I had to turn the D2 up to about 40 to match the volume. At normal listening volumes, this wasn't an issue. As for differences in sound signatue, two aspects were very noticable. Bass is a bit dull, and not as deep as the D2. One way of fixing this is by using the "heavy" equalizer setting, but i fear that bassheads might not get what they want out of it if they have headphones that need the extra boost. I think most people will find it more than sufficient.
The second thing I noticed with the sound was the somewhat lacking precision of the PSP Slim. On tracks with a lot going on, vocals and instruments, the D2 was noticably better at seperating everything, while the PSP Slim came off as a bit scrambled. Again, not somethign I think most people will even notice. These two aspects was discovered by directly comparing the PSP Slim to a dedicated DAP, while the music playing feature on the PSP Slim is only an extra. I have used the PSP Slim on the go many times, and I have no problem doing so. Compared to for instance my cellphone, it sounds like heaven. It doesn't fail miserably at anything it does sound wise, it just doesnt have the extra effort that dedicated players have. For normal use, it will do fine for most people. For audiophiles, it shouldn't come as a surprise that a game console won't do it for you.
As for the music playback features themselves, the PSP Slim is a bit limited. First of all, it only plays back atrac, aac, mp3 and wma. Second, if you like ID3 tag browsing, the PSP Slim isn't for you - as it only supports file tree browsing (brosing by file name), and only one folder deep. That means you can't have folders inside folders, as it won't see them. The playlist support would normally help this problem, as it does support m3u playlists, but the implementation of this is very bad. You have to put the m3u file inside the folder where the music files are - no playlists with songs from different folders, and on top of that only one playlist per folder is possible. The playlist also overrides the file listing, so if you put a playlist consisting of say 10 songs in a folder with 200 songs, only the 10 will show up. This more or less renders the whole playlist concept useless, unless you want to use it to play the songs in a specific order. The music playback screen is actually very nice on the PSP, showing album art, artist, song title and progress. You also have a selection of visualizers to choose from, a feature I'm quite fond of, although many people might not find it very useful. For controls, you have the basics, including skip folder. There are a few EQ presets, but no manual EQ. For play modes you have the standard shuffle and repeat settings, nothing to write home about. More advanced features like pan balance and alarm clock is nowhere to be found. It will play your music, but it doesnt have the most advanced feature set out there.
Officially, the PSP Slim support MPEG-4 LC and h.264/MPEG-4 AVC Main profile. In real life, video is such a hassle there really is no way of knowing what it will accept. For a long time, video files could only be up to 368x208 or 320x240 pixels, which means it didn't cover all of the PSP's 480x272 screen. It also required you to name the files in a very confusing way and use specific folders for each codec type. Luckily those days are over. The PSP now support fullscreen video, and you can name the files what you want and put them in the VIDEO folder. It's still picky about the codecs, and I've encoutered a number of errors while trying to get video onto it. Luckily, there are programs out there that will convert video for you, and these will correct most troubles that I had converting the files manually. You don't get the same quality as with a manual conversion, but it will do.
h.264 is your best bet for video, as it compresses the video to very small file sizes without noticable quality loss. For 20 minutes at maximum resolution, 70 MB will be about right if you stick to 512kbps video and 96/128kbps audio. Seeing that the current max capacity of the PSP Slim is 8GB, small file sizes is a must have. One good thing about the video support is that it supports standard video podcasts, like the ipod uses. This means you can download a variety of videos legally and directly using RSS or a computer, and they will play without conversion. As for your own videos, you will need to convert them.
Video playback in itself is really nice on the PSP Slim. If you convert videoes correctly, the end result is very watchable on the 4.3" 24bit screen. Video playback has been improved in recent firmware releaes, and now include a very useful scene search feature. This feature basically divides the movie into 1,2,3,4 or 5 minute segments with thumbnails, like chapter select on a DVD. this is extremely useful for finding specific scenes in long movies.Other playback features include screen mode (fullscreen, normal, zoom) and shuffle. Last, but not least, is the video-out feature introduced with the PSP Slim. This enables the PSP to output it's entire feature set to a TV (game output requires component cable), including the menu, video and music playback, internet browser etc. For video this is very nice, because the PSP supports resolutions up to 720x480, which means the quality on a TV is very high compared to players like the D2 where the max output of video is 320x240.
Lastly, and barely worth mentioning at this point, is the UMD video feature. Sony thought it to be a good idea to limit the PSP's video capabilities at first, so to earn money from selling full screen movies on UMD's. They failed, very badly. At this point in time, UMD's are basically out. You can still find them in bargain bins and such, but there won't be any more support for it, and most stores have stopped selling them. It was a good idea, top quality movies, DVD style, and for a portable platform. Unfortunately, the price was too high for it to ever catch on. If the original PSP had video out, things might have turned out different (as UMD video out quality is simply superb), but this didn't arrive until the PSP Slim. It still shows that the PSP really does do good video, and if you find some video UMDs in a bargain bin or second hand store, you won't be disappointed when it comes to quality, both on PSP and on TV.
The photo mode is pretty basic, but it works. It views standard formats such as jpeg and gif, and allows for zooming, rotating, using as wallpaper, slideshow, and even has an option for sending to other PSPs. What's most useful about the photo mode is that there are several PSP magazines on the internet, which can be downlaoded for free and viewed on the PSP. These magazines are simply pictures made as pages in a magazine, and are normally viewed by holding the PSP horizontally (using the R button - shoulder button - to flip pages). This method is also useful for viewing books on the PSP, by using programs such as jpegbook for txt->jpeg conversion. One down side of the photo viewer is that for some reason it only sorts by date. Not name, not size, only date. This is annoying if you're trying to sort pics in a specific order, as the date edited has to be in that order for the pics to appear that way.
There has been a lot of more or less concept players featuring wifi features over the last few years. The sansa connect, zune, ibiza rhapsody, etc. These have been less successful at wifi integration, which I find rather amusing seeing the PSP does what they're trying to do without trying. The PSP wifi features include a web browser, RSS reader, internet radio (as of firmware 3.80), locationfree player and remote play. To start at the end, Remote Play allows you to control a PS3 wirelessly over wifi, including streaming video and music off the PS3. LocationFree is a hardware box by sony that allows you to do much of the same as with the PS3, although this never really caught on, as the LocationFree unit is a bit expensive. The internet Radio is a completely new feature added in the 3.80 update on december 18. After you have downloaded the actual players onto your PSP, you can connect to the internet and choose between a variety of channels. The quality is decent and it generally works well, definately something a lot of people could have a use for, even if I don't. RSS on the other hand, is a feature I've learned to love. The RSS feature supports video and audio, but video have to be downloaded before playing, while audio can be streamed directly. RSS works very well for podcasts, as (for those who aren't familiar with RSS) it will update the list of available episodes when connecting to the internet, and you can then choose to stream or download the file to the memory card. lastly, there is the web browser. Unfortunately this is very slow, and often run out of memory trying to load all the ads and random crap that are on many commercial sites. It can in no way compete with web browsers such as the Safari browser of the iPod touch, but it will work in an emergency.
The battery life is both a weak and a strong point of the PSP SLim. The battery is user changeable, and larger capacity batteries are available to almost double the battery life. The problem, however, is that there isn't much of a difference between using it for music rather than gaming or video. This means that even with the high capacity battery, you won't get more than 10-15 hours of music playback from it, depending on how much you fiddle around. However this also means you'll have 8-10 hours of video with the high capacity battery (and about half with the standard battery), which is very good. The high capacity battery isn't all that cheap though, but considering how much of a hassle it normally is to change batteries of PMP's, it's a welcomed change that it's possible at all. That being said, you will have to charge this thing a lot, and you cannot depend on it for long periods without having access to a charger of some sort.
Other than the iPod, no device can match the accessories available for the PSP. Extra, larger batteries is one thing I already mentioned. You also have extrenal batteries, battery grips, car chargers and other power related accessories. For customisation, you have faceplates, vinyl skins and stickers, along with downloadable themes. There are video docks, speaker docks, music remotes and FM transmitters, screen protectors, cases and silicon skin. Basically everything you can get for the iPod. Then you have the three "major" accessories. First is the PSP camera, which allows for photos up to 1,3 mega pixels, and video up to 480x272 (PSP screen resolution). This works rather well, and the downloadable editing program also adds some fun into the whole mix. It won't replace your digital camera, but it can be sueful in a pinch. Second is the GPS, which has yet to reach outside Asia - but is planned to due so early 2008. Lastly is a 1seg TV tuner, which is Asia only and will probably stay that way. It has features like recording and digital TV guides, basically a TiVo on the go. Unfortunately, as I said, we will probably never see it anywhere outside Asia.
When I said I would only focus on the PMP abilities, I half way lied, as I am going to mention one game - Beats. This is a downloadable game that was released with the PC version of the Playstation Store not long ago, and it is a very neat treat for anyone who wants to use the PSP for music. Beats is basically a rythm game, along the lines of StepMania and other DDR games. Most people have probably seen the dance machines in arcade halls and other places, where you hit the right arrows to the rythm of the music. This is the same principle, but instead of using music that has a programmed set of arrows, it uses the music on the PSP and extrapolates the rythm from that. The result isn't as good as what you see with the programmed tracks, but it's not half bad. You use the left and right button in coordination with the circle, cross, square and triangle game buttons of the PSP to hit the right combination, and you end up with a score based on accuracy, timing etc. Beats also include a limited mixing program where you use preset music to mix songs and whatnot. The game cost $4.99, and is a nice treat if you don't like your fingers to just sit there while you listen to music.
The biggest disadvantage of the PSP Slim as a PMP is definately the limited storage capacity. No internal memory, and only compatible with Memory Stick Duo means that memory cards are expensive, slow, and you probably won't have more than one device that uses this type, unless you have several Sony products. Not only do you have to buy a memory card, but you also need a USB cable (standard mini-USB B, UMS mode) as the only things that come in the base pack are battery, charger, and the device itself. Battery life and sound quality suggest you look somewhere else if you're looking for a full time music player, as this won't give you the best audio, or provide it for very long between each charge. If you're simply looking for a multimedia device, and can live with the sound quality being only decent, the PSP Slim isn't a bad choice. You have video, music, a ton of wifi capabilites, and it has the one thing PMP's don't - games. Lots of games. If you are planning on never using it for games, go with something else. It's a game console first, and a PMP second, and the reason it's a nice buy is because it is both those things, not one or the other by itself.