PSP Battery Journal

ayersrj writes "The folks over at IGN have started a "Battery Journal" in an attempt to provide us with some relevant information regarding the battery life issue on the PSP in a realistic playing environment. The first run: a little under five hours with no wi-fi. Not too shabby."

Comments

But how many...

[GoldRanger]

...McGriddles did they consume in that same time span?

Whine, Whine, Whine

[Voltage Spike]

I'm happy with five hours, but people will still point out that the DS does better.

Why don't they make the batteries easy to swap out? This practice is not too popular (look at Pocket PCs), but it should stop the complaints.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Neil Watson]

How long will the battery last in 6 months?

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Jorkapp]

We'll find out in 6 months.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[chaboud]

You mean, the way that Sony did? cough

I can't think of a swap being much more easy than that.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Mondoz]

I'm not happy with it.
5 hours isn't that great. I use my GBA SP for long plane trips... At that rate, the PSP rate will get me about 1/3 of the way there.

I've had a single charge on the SP take me the entire trip. I don't want to carry batteries everywhere I go, along with a charger...
(I guess that satisfies your assumption about mentioning the fact that Nintendo's battery life is better, but it's true...)

I'll reserve my complete judgement on the unit until I see it for myself, but this issue is certainly not painting it in a very favorable light.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Voltage Spike]

I should have been more explicit. From what I have seen, you have to stop playing the game and turn the unit off to switch batteries. Is there a sleep mode, and can you change batteries during that time period?

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Anubis350]

most planes these days have power outlets, you can plug it in. My powerbook on heavy usage even swapping batteries only gets about 5 hrs total (I have 2 batteries and it gets about 2 1/2 hrs a battery). However, on a plane I can usually plug in my laptop and not have to worry about it, the same applies here.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Reignking]

Seriously? I have never seen this. Granted, I don't fly that much, but I have never seen it. I assume that it must be on brand-new planes, and maybe only first class?

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[benzapp]

If you are flying a major airline they are there. Discount airlines, less so.

The whole battery and plane trips story is old news for the average business traveller.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[SlamMan]

I strongly disagree that most planes have power outlets. I've flown 10 time this past year, and only once did my seat have an outlet.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Aero Leviathan]

Yes. I believe an RTFA is in order.

7:45PM: Battery died
And I was right in the middle of a huge score in the Industrial skin on Lumines! It's okay, though, because the PSP goes into sleep mode when the battery dies, allowing you to continue play exactly where you left off, once you've gotten more power to your system.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[ShawnDoc]

I agree with you. I fly nearly every week, often cross country, and on the major airlines. Finding a seat with a power outlet is very rare. Generally only a hanful of seats have the ports (And they are car cigarette lighter type), and good luck knowing which seats have them before you get on. Maybe business class is different.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Voltage Spike]

You are right. I started ignoring any entries that involved the word "Lumines" (since they didn't relate to the batteries), and I missed the important one.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Otter]

Maybe in first class and business -- I fly roughly once a month (AA, United, Continental and Alitalia this year) and haven't seen a single one in coach.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Have Blue]

How does this sleep mode work exactly? Does the PSP have static RAM? Does it have an emergency backup battery? Does it secretly underestimate its battery's capacity so it has a reserve to sleep on until it gets charged- and does this mean it will "die" if left asleep for too long, and permanently reduce the battery capacity as LiIons are wont to do?

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Anubis350]

I flew a domestic flight coach from NYC to chicago last year and had power outlets at my seat.....

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[jcostom]

I fly nearly every week, often cross country, and on the major airlines.

It's all in the planning.

Finding power outlets is HIGHLY dependent on what airline you fly on, as well as the type of equipment.

Living near Philly, I fly US Air just about everywhere. As long as I'm on an Airbus 320 or 321, I'm virtually guaranteed to have power. The outlets also show up quite a lot on 319s and 737s. I've never seen them on American, though I did see them on a United flight to Chicago (again, out of Philly). I used to fly US Air twice a week Philly to Boston, and had power 8 out of 10 times. Every US Air flight to the west coast I've ever been on had it as well.

So, think when you plan your travel and you'll probably have power.

And I've never seen a cigarette lighter type power plug on a plane. The only kind I've ever seen on planes are like this. Many of those type have things that slide over the end to let them be used in a cig lighter, but I've never seen a cig lighter plug on a plane.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Mondoz]

My company flies me back and forth to Moscow Russia a few times a year. I never see these plugs in coach class. (They send me on Delta, btw.)

I was upgraded to Business class once, and saw the plugs there. However, these weren't standard outlets, and required a special adapter. This wasn't a nationality issue; there was a special airplane plug of some sort. The guy next to me had a laptop & portable DVD player, both of which died on the 14 hour flight because he didn't have this special adapter.

And to the poster who says it's only the cost of a meal to upgrade: try upgrading an international flight. It's a bit more than that.
The only time I was upgraded was when I was forced to stay the night in NY due to Delta's mistake. My company wouldn't ever spring for it, due to the cost.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[cortana]

I'm confident that Sony, the same company that gave us consoles whose optical drives break after 13 months use, would not make such a stupid mistake.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[SlamMan]

Usually around 3 hour, layover, then 1 hour. I would imagine most intercontinental flight s have this sort of thing, but my short to medium flights didn't.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[benzapp]

American Airlines most definitely has them, as does US Air. You probably just didn't notice, and I didn't mention you have to use a DC adapter.

Those are the only airlines I fly regularly so I couldn't tell you about the rest. I believe the DC power connectors are standard features on all new Airbus planes... so I would be very surprised if Alitalia didn't have them.

Business class and first class, these days, is defined more by other expensive features than a power outlet, especially given Airbus' move.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Anonymous Coward]

I fly internationally often. In a trans atlantic flight, business class is at least a $2000 hike for a 5-7 hour flight. In the worst case scenario, you'll end up paying $1000 for a NY to Madrid trip, $400 if you find good dates on a major carrier. On the other hand, a business ticket goes for more than $3000 most of the time. 1st class, of course, is another couple thousand more.

I don't know about whoever pays for your trips, but my CEO won't take an extra $2000 per trip because I want to plug computer in.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[ryouki]

They did.
Extra batteries cost about ~$50 bucks.
You just slide off the battery cover and replace the old battery with a new one nothing hard there.

And yes I am one of the lucky first 200,000 resedents of Japan with a PSP.

And Lumines is a cool game, I can see how IGN spent 5 hours straight playing it.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[loraksus]

This practice is not too popular (look at Pocket PCs)

Eh? Toshiba e805, virtually every ipaq I've seen, my Palm m105 from years back.
The only PDA that I've had that didn't have the feature was my toshiba e335, and I got that for $50 after rebates.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[loraksus]

Some seats have an electrical plugs in them, even in coach.
Depends on what carrier, etc, but usually front row or back row of a section has power running to it and hidden under the seat.
Might be 12V dc, might be a 10 amp 110AC line.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[CountBrass]

He was complaining idiot. He was pointing out that the assumption that there is a power supply by your seat on a plane is wrong.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[Afrosheen]

13 months? Try 91 days. Still pissed about being a first adopter when the PS2 was released...but with Gran Turismo 4 coming, I *have* to buy another one.

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[JabberWokky]

Reread my message. I was pointing out that it's easy to pay for an upgrade in seats, and if it is important to him, he can pay for it. If he's too cheap to buy the right seat, he shouldn't complain.

It's like walking into McDonalds and bitching about the lack of metal utensils. You're paying cutrate, you get corners cut. It doesn't mean "restaurants don't have metal utensils" - it just means you're scraping the bottom of the barrel to save a few bucks and then complaining about the lack of quality.

If you want the amenities of business class, fly business class. Don't pay coach and then bitch that you don't have the stuff that is available in the next class up.

--
Evan

Re:Whine, Whine, Whine

[nissu]

Well, I must have gotten a defective unit from Sony because my PS2 has worked without a hitch for three and a half years.

Then again, I don't keep my PS2 on the floor where it'll suck itself full of dust (even if you vacuum regularly).

Betteries for PSP?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what version of Paint Shop Pro you guys use, but mine does not need batteries. :)

Not too shabby?

[theREALMcCoy]

I beg to differ. I don't want another device I have to remeber to charge every night if I want to use it the next day. My cell phone, palm, and laptop are enough.

Re:Not too shabby?

[XMyth]

So, if you had to plug it up ~ every other day it wouldn't be a problem? Or are you saying you prever alkaline batteries?

If it's got a recharable battery, I'm plugging it up every day.

Re:Not too shabby?

[MutantHamster]

Uh, also -- Has anybody else noticed that this thing looks like a clunky piece of shit? It looks like a Game Gear on steroids. It looks like it could crush a chicken if you dropped it on one.

Anybody else got some?

Re:Not too shabby?

[aichpvee]

Actually, this is more like a Game Gear on steroids.

It does get pretty similar battery life to a PSP running games, so I can see how you might get confused.

Re:Not too shabby?

[FrenZon]

I'm suprised that no-one's mentioned that the PSP has a user-accessible battery - it means that users can just carry an additional one around in their bag of UMDs. Sure, it's not an ideal situation, but it means that on your flight from whereever to whereever, you're not totally stuffed.

Re:Not too shabby?

[Lumpy]

which brings me back to my idea from 10 years ago..

the charging mat/table. a simple coil in a mat or under the table and then secondary coils built in the electronics.

set the device on the table/mat and it starts charging. people would eat it up, although cellphone companies would lose money as their entire profit model is on selling new chargers, that is why they change the charger plug every 30 minutes in a production run of a phone to ensure that you have to buy all new chargers every time.

imagine if your phone, pda, and game as well as other devices that use batteries would subscribe to the charging mat/table design... throw all the items on the table and they charge.

it's technology from over 20 years ago, I wrote a paper about it for Electronics Engineering in 1991 and here we are in the 21'st century and we have more chargers than we have gadgest because manufacturers refuse to standardize.

disgusting isn't it?

Re:Not too shabby?

[Schmapdi]

I agree, at least partially, I have too many rechargeables as is, I like not having to buy batteries everyday but having to recharge everything I own is getting a little annoying too. That's why I bought me one of those Creative Muvos. One AAA battery and I get ~15 hours of playtime. That I can handle. (Of course for me 15 hours of playtime is like a month of using the thing.) And if I want I can always buy a set of rechargeable nimhs to use in it (and anything else).

Re:Not too shabby?

[thatguywhoiam]

which brings me back to my idea from 10 years ago.. the charging mat/table. a simple coil in a mat or under the table and then secondary coils built in the electronics.

Seen this?

Re:Not too shabby?

[Lumpy]

bah theirs is simply doing what many of us in EE at college have though of for decades. Their product is STILL vaporware, you cant actually buy it, and it requires modification of your hardware.

the problem lies in the fact that manufacturers LOVE the idea in forcing you to buy another charger or two. chargers have the highest markup, typically costing the customer from $30-$50.00 retail while it costs the manufacturer $0.55- $5.00 to make. most of the time it is the low end of the price as they simply take an OEM charger and have a company simply attach their plug on it in their wiring configuration. cellphone, PDA, game,camcorder companies make a huge amount of profit from "accessory" sales so they will not do anything that may destroy that huge source of income.

a universal charging mat or table like you linked to would only exist if there was a law that mandated compatability with it thus forcing manufacturers to comply... some will not comply though, simply giving you a box with a plug that will sit on the mat, now you STILL have to plug something in.

i had working prototypes in 1991 and demoed it with a cellphone from that time and a modified 35mm point and shoot camera with nicads and the secondary coil for charging the batteries.

problems I ran into, HUGE magnetic field is needed to have efficient charging of multiple devices on the pad, cellphones would suffer damage from voltage induction in the RF section's coils.... oops!

increased efficiency would be had if you had an iron cor on the secondary coils, and a iron plate on the primary coil would help some.

this is DEADLY to all types of magnetic media and Prox cards. erased all credit cards and fried the access proxcard in my wallet during one test.

the key is getting the secondary coil as large as possible with a iron core and lots of turns that way you can reduce the field strength of the primary coil on the pad.

I origionally came up with the idea in 1998 by looking at how a electric toothbrush recharged with induction.

so if that consumer product had that capability, I am sure that EE students though of it and were messing with the idea in the 70's.

the sad part is that the company your link talked about probably patented the process of using electromagnetic induction.

thus screwingthe world out of yet another obvious invention.

You know, you could have linked without the ad

[Anonymous Crowhead]

link

Re:They should keep a history

[wizbit]

Well, this is a li-ion, right? And those don't take to full charge-discharge cycles very well, if my iPod is any indication. But the author points out many times that they could've plugged in the unit any number of times to recharge it, and a quick discharge-recharge isn't going to impact it much. Unless you want them to cycle it a few hundred times (500 hours?) I think you're out of luck for a little while.

Dear Journal

[Locdonan]

PSP hit me again today. It says that its my fault that it gets so little battery life. If I would only learn to love it as it is. I just don't know.

Today the PSP saw me linking up to play with some friends. It burnt my hands and threw a CD at me. It says that I don't need friends. I should just be with it.

What have I done!? I couldn't take it anymore. I killed the PSP. I took it off teh wall jack, and played it till it passed out. Then I flushed it down the toilet... All I have to remember it by is the broken CD and a scar under my left eye.

Re:Dear Journal

[kfg]

Congratulations, you made it to -1, funny

Well, you have to admit that that is quite an accomplishment. I don't think I've ever quite pulled it off myself.

. . . it say's "I'm Modding you down, just because"

And I take it you have a problem with that? Jeez, some people just have no sense of no sense of humor.

KFG

Re:Dear Journal

[DrMrLordX]

I personally prefer +5, Troll

Re:Yeah but...

[eln]

With wifi, the battery life is variable, but it usually lasts just long enough to get through a particularly difficult quest in a game, but not quite long enough to save the game afterward.

Sony will no doubt release a better battery later.

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes no sense not to. Maybe the one the PSP comes with is the most cost effective solution.

It would certainly be a Sony thing to sell a higher capacity battery for a nice markup.

Not that Nintendo's business practices are any better. Release a handheld with a terrible screen, then after everyone buys that, release a better version with features it should've had to begin with (minus the headphone jack), and then release a completely different handheld that's backwards compatible.

We'll probably end up seeing a "sleeker, smaller" version of the DS in about a year or so. And naturally, the consumers will happily rebuy it for $150.

Re:peh

[UWC]

Sony Sony Sony, havent you learned anything from Sega? Leave the handhelds to Nintendo.

Yes, why try to enter a market in which Sega failed to succeed ten years ago? It makes no sense at all to release a sleek, comparatively sized unit with extra features in a market that couldn't support the Game Gear ten years ago. I'm sure nothing has changed in the interim.

Notes: post was sarcastic, and I own a DS. I don't begrudge Sony for entering the market and think they do stand a chance at success, though probably not domination. Screenshots look very nice, and the price is surprisingly low for what it can do. I may end up with one eventually.

Where's the jet engine?

[dep01]

Too bad they won't be incorporating the jet engine chip for power... Those things are so freaking cool.

Re:Where's the jet engine?

[ssimontis]

Please include bugmenot links if the article needs a login! I read an article on this in MIT Tech Review, but they idea is still in testing. They are working on a prototype right now, and I believe they are planning to release it sometime 2006-2008. I wish I could get the exact year the article states, but my issue with the article is at school.

DS does 10

[kuwan]

Nintendo claims that the Nintendo DS can last about 10 hours before it needs to be charged. I don't know whether or not this is real-world performance. It'd be interesting to see what the battery life is when doing multiplayer, wireless gaming.

--
Free Nintendo DS

Re:DS does 10

[laddhebert]

I always read that as, will never last more than 10 hours - never ever.

-L

Re:DS does 10

[kerrle]

Real world is actually better; Nintendo has been under-quoting battery life since the original GBA. I haven't kept specific records, but I've played DS for days without charging it.

Re:DS does 10

[FuzzzyLogik]

Ok I'll bite. I own a GBA SP that they claim lasts 10 hours with frontlighting on and 16 with it off. My experience has been about 12-13 hours with the frontlight on and I can't comment on the frontlight off because I never turn it off. Nintendo typically gives correct numbers for batterly life, as you can see my battery life is actually HIGHER than they stated. So how's that for ya? I would trust nintendo, where I do not trust Sony.

Re:DS does 10

[kuwan]

This is encouraging for me since I hope to be getting a DS for Christmas (Santa are you out there?). I've got a GBA SP and the battery life on that thing is outstanding. I can probably count the number of times I've charged it on one hand. Of course I don't play with it nearly as much as other people, but having good battery life is a must in a portable. If I'm going to fly from New York to California then I don't want to worry about my GameBoy (or DS) running out of life before I get there.

--
Free Nintendo DS

Re:DS does 10

[tonejava]

I find that if your power light on the SP starts to turn red (low battery level warning) switching the back light off usually does a good job of giving you maybe another 3-4 hours - can even restore the power light to green.

Re:DS does 10

[kerrle]

You should be fine in that type of circumstance...either me or someone else has probably played my DS at least an hour a day for the past week...and I think I plugged it in last Monday.

Right now, the battery meter on the main menu is showing a full green battery...

Re:DS does 10

[SetupWeasel]

I own a DS. I seem to get 8-10 hours from Super Mario 64 DS. I have heard as much as 12 hours, but I suspect that may be from someone using mainly GBA carts. I have also heard as little as 6-7 hours, and that would include some wireless play.

Here is an AP review

A quote:
"I managed 7-1/2 hours of battery life on a single charge, playing graphics-intensive games, blasting the music through the stereo speakers and connecting online with another DS."

Though it does not say if the wireless was used the entire time.

Re:DS does 10

[SetupWeasel]

Yeah, but if you read the manual, that green full battery will only change when the light on the DS changes. It doesn't give you any more of a "time remaining" than that.

Re:DS does 10

[AvitarX]

My usage far surpasses the 10 hours on the SP.

Re:DS does 10

[P-Frank]

My GBA SP has lasted at least 16 with the light off as I used it on a flight from London to Auckland almost the entire way.

Re:DS does 10

[aliens]

You should try playing without sound. I don't know how long my SP has lasted but I seriously go so long between charges I forget.

Re:DS does 10

[FLAGGR]

Heh, you have a Nintendo QS: Quad-Screen.

Man I want a second one, to take apart

Re:DS does 10

[arose]

More like Nintendo DDS: Dance Dance Smash. You put your 2 units on the floor and kick the touchscreen whenever it light up...

interesting criteria

[fireduck]

Playing through Ridge Racers until the battery dies is probably not a good indication of how long the battery will last when you end up getting your PSP system and putting it to use for a variety of things.

Except, this is exactly the scenario I'd want tested when purchasing a portable device. I'd like to know if it will die on me when I'm flying from Los Angeles to New York. Hopefully they'll include this in future tests.

Re:interesting criteria

[javaxman]

Playing through Ridge Racers until the battery dies is probably not a good indication of how long the battery will last when you end up getting your PSP system and putting it to use for a variety of things.

Did they ask gamers? I'm pretty sure that playing a game like Ridge Racer during a multi-hour flight/ride/wait is the most likely usage scenario I can think of, at least for me... granted, over the course of a couple of hours I might decide to switch between Gran Turismo, Spiderman 2, and Dynasty Warriors, but... I'd like to be able to do so over the course of a couple of hours if need be. Having a second battery handy would be a pain.

Maybe I'll get an iBook instead. It's only 3 times the price, what the heck. ;-)

Generated warmth

[Tribbin]

Only the winter edition will be using this much battery-power.

Re:peh

[kerrle]

I will end up with one, though I still expect to do my gaming on a DS, which I already own. The PSP looks interesting, but I've a feeling that 5 hours will end up being essentially the best possible. For games with near constant disc access, which will have to happen if people expect games that play like PS2 games, the battery life will be much lower, with or without Wi-Fi.

What?

[Mike Hawk]

So what would be a reasonable charge cycle be for a device with disc based media and wifi capability? What the hell are you saying here? How long should a portable video game system be expected to last on a charge? Even if you used it 2.5 hours a day it would still make it two days.

Or are you saying that you just don't want another device at all? I guess I can respect that, but why even post to the story you negative nellie.

Re:What?

[aichpvee]

One might be asked rather what is the point of a disc-based portable game player if the battery life blows for having it?

Not that I care, neither PSP nor DS is looking particularly good to me. Maybe if one of them gets a super duper remake of Dragon Warrior 1&2...

Battery University

[The I Shing]

A while ago I stumbled across this site called Battery University, which has a lot of detailed information about how various kinds of batteries work and how best to make use of them. Not sure if this is relevant, but just wanted to toss that into the conversation.

Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[Michalson]

And with one of the features turned off too.
PSP (like NDS and GBA SP) uses an internal rechargable battery. That means you can't replace the battery when it gets low, you need a power outlet and time to recharge. The old Gameboy (Pocket) offered about 8-9 on replacable AAAs. Gameboy Advance was near 14 hours (or about 9-10 using the rechargable battery pack).

Didn't anyone (at Sony) learn anything from Gamegear vs Gameboy? It didn't matter if your system was a monochrome sub-NES powered unit with a bezel speaker, it could still beat a full color portable that didn't give a full days use out of a charge. I'd say mistake #1 was even considering optical (mechanically read) media. Unless the whole dual screen/touch screen gamble flops, PSP will be going the same way as the Gamegear, in exactly the same way (large, high powered but battery killing unit that is mostly filled with ports from its larger brother)

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[k_187]

Nope, wrong. The PSP Battery is replaceable, new ones are just 45 bucks a pop. I do believe that the only way to charge them is plugged into the PSP though, so most of your point still stands, but you can charge them up and have standbys waiting.

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[Evangelion]

The GBA SP and DS batteries are replaceable (and they're both the same kind, so you can cannabalize your SP for a spare DS battery if you so desire).

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[Voltage Spike]

They are paying attention.

Nintendo learned with the Gameboy Advance that a super-long battery life cannot make up for a poor screen (well, poorly lit).

The Game Gear taught manufacturers that a great screen and strong processor cannot make up for poor battery life.

As with most things, the goal is finding the appropriate balance. Sony is betting that most people will not care to play for more than five hours away from a power source. In my case, this is a reasonable assumption, but they cannot possibly please everyone.

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[bleakcabal]

No you are able to take out the battery and put another one in. They even sell them in the stores. Before posting such a long post you should at least bother to look up what you are talking about, especially when you don't seem to know squat about what you are talking.

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[tonejava]

Actually yes the battery in the GBA SP is replaceable only it's not so simple as flipping a panel to slip in the new battery - something Nintendo should consider for the next gen Game boy (when it comes out).

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[Derekloffin]

Actually, Sony did learn, and apparently you didn't even bother to look this up. Not only is the PSP's battery exchangable, it hot-swappable, meaning you can actually switch with a game still going, just in sleep mode. Even Nintendo has learned, as their batteries can be swapped out too with a slight bit more effort.

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[prockcore]

Nope, wrong. The PSP Battery is replaceable, new ones are just 45 bucks a pop.

Woah, Gameboy SP batteries are $15 from Nintendo.com, and the DS uses the exact same battery.

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[DeadScreenSky]

DS batteries are $15, but I am not sure they are the same as the SP ones. Nintendo at least sells them as different products. And in the PSP's defence, it does recharge a lot faster (2 hours or so compared to the 4-5 for the DS). It will be interesting to see what economies of scale do to its battery price...

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[marsonist]

There is only a small tab of plastic that differentiates the DS from SP batteries... snip of the tab and you're in business

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[DeadScreenSky]

Interesting. I wonder why Nintendo chose to do that. They can't honestly be making any real profit on the batteries... are you positive they both put out the same juice? (I could see the DS one being slightly better.)

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[tepples]

Nintendo learned with the Gameboy Advance that a super-long battery life cannot make up for a poor screen (well, poorly lit).

No, but battery life and killer titles can. Or which handheld beat the GBA in sales between mid-2001 and late 2002?

Sony is betting that most people will not care to play for more than five hours away from a power source.

Except on transatlantic or transpacific airline flights, which often charge hundreds of dollars extra to move a passenger from coach (with no power point within the cord's reach) to business class (with one every seat).

Re:Less then 5 hours is "not too shabby"?

[Voltage Spike]

No, but battery life and killer titles can. Or which handheld beat the GBA in sales between mid-2001 and late 2002?

Yes, the GBA sold well, but I am certain the weak competition in that arena helped. That does not (completely) erase the fact that many people had issues with the screen.

On the flip side, I suppose Nintendo had trouble selling the SP model. Nobody with the original model would need to upgrade, would they? (Yes, I do know that the SP offered more than a frontlit screen, but I am positive that the simple addition of a light greatly boosted their sales.)

Except on transatlantic or transpacific airline flights, which often charge hundreds of dollars extra to move a passenger from coach (with no power point within the cord's reach) to business class (with one every seat).

As I said, Sony is betting that most people will find the battery life acceptable. Personally, I have never taken a transatlantic flight, nor do I know people for which this is a regular occurrence.

Sony has catered to those with special needs by providing easy access to batteries. They may be expensive, but so are those long flights...

As you hint, though, it all boils down to one thing: games. Most people will gloss over pretty much anything to have a good time.

Re:They should keep a history

[Mysticalfruit]

Yeah, but unlike your iPod, I don't think it takes a couple yards of primacord and a bandsaw to replace the battery...

GameSpot reports otherwise...

[unclethursday]

GameSpot reports on battery life.

Apparently depending on the game, the battery life can be HORRID. Simply grahic games can go for 5 or so hours with no WiFi turned on... more graphically intense games? Ridge Racers goes for 90 mins-3 hours, depending on screen brightness and speaker use.

90 minutes!!! Next Sony will be selling protable generators to carry on your back when taking your PSP and graphically intesnive games around with you (Metal Gear Ac!d, Gran Turismo, Ridge Racers, etc.).

[sarcasm]Yep, looks like IGN is right, as always...[/sarcasm]

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[inkdesign]

"Ridge Racers seems to last somewhere between 90 minutes and three hours. Playing with the wireless networking switch flipped on will also further reduce your battery life."

Sounds like even less to me!

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[adam31]

Ah, yes. Gamespot. The island of Truth in a sea of amateurish drivel. The pillar of Wisdom on which rests the integrity of an entire industry.

Seriously, are suggesting that this guy is lying? He has me quite convinced... I mean, I won't be reloading the article minute-by-minute drueling for the next update in the journal...

But when he says he gets 4.5 hours, I believe he's telling the truth at least.
I admit that it's almost unbelievable how accurate the "Time left" counter is... but maybe it really is that accurate?

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[SetupWeasel]

Considering that Gamespot used the most graphically intensive release game and IGN didn't, I'm more inclined to trust Gamespot's numbers. Gamespot said it depended what you were doing, so they used a graphically intensive game to get the low end.

IGN played freaking music files for one hour and played a puzzle game for one hour and forty-five minutes.

Going by what IGN said, they spent 2 hours playing games likely to drain the battery quickly and spent 2:45 doing things that aren't likely to drain the battery quickly.

I imagine that if you stick to the rigorous itenerary IGN gave precisely, you will get 4.5 hours. But if you want to play Ridge Racers single-player, you will get 1.5 - 3 hours.

Either way, it is a far cry from the 10 hours Sony promised us at E3.

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[Derekloffin]

Something to pay close attention to when talking about the Gamespot time... It's an estimate. We have no real idea what kind of testing they did to get that estimate at all.

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[DeadScreenSky]

And the IGN article pointed out that playing one game for 5 hours is an unrealistic depiction of what most people would use the PSP for. Their test was supposed to get a feel for average use. Gamespot didn't even give exact numbers, or any real data on volume or contrast settings...

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[jandrese]

My experiance with these built-in batteries is that right out of the box they have great life, but six months to a year down the road you're looking at half of the runtime (or less!). Worse, integrated batteries are often difficult/expensive to replace and can be hard to find once a gadget goes out of production. This is why I usually look for stuff that takes AA batteries, because I can always just use NiMH rechargables in it and fall back on Alkalines if I have to.

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[SetupWeasel]

No, we are talking 1 game for 1.5-3 hours. Specifically Ridge Racers. Hell THEY played Lumines IN THAT ARTICLE for 1.75 hours straight.

Believe me when I say that I have played Super Mario 64 DS for more than 3 hours straight since I got my DS.

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[SetupWeasel]

To be fair, I would use a PSP for puzzle games if I had one. I like puzzle games. ^_^

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[DeadScreenSky]

(I didn't mean to imply that you could play something like Ridge Racers for 5 hours, incidentally. Just using it as an example of unlikely usage.)

Just to be sure, we are talking about this article, right?

Based on our estimates and a few battery-draining tests, Ridge Racers seems to last somewhere between 90 minutes and three hours.

No contrast or sound info given. No real data given (if it was just a few tests, why not give us the numbers?). Their study didn't seem all that scientific to me. Though I am sure Ridge Racers won't last too long, I am pretty comfortable assuming it is closer to that 3 hour mark when using proper settings.

Believe me when I say that I have played Super Mario 64 DS for more than 3 hours straight since I got my DS.
The only time I can possibly imagine myself away from an outlet for 3 hours straight and able to turn my attention to a portable gaming system is on a plane trip or if I happen to be a passenger on a very long car ride. Neither happen that often for most people. The PSP battery life isn't great, but people are blowing its limit out of proportion I think.

And I would be surprised if a game that looks like Super Mario 64 DS wouldn't run for well more than 3 hours on the PSP. :P

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[SetupWeasel]

Of course there are pros and cons. All I am saying is that IGN didn't exactly go out of their way to test the battery. I Spong reports 2:40 out of Ridge Racers at medium brightness, no wireless play, and no headphones. 3:10 with headphones.

Here's the link.

If you are willing to accept 3 hours for a game like this, that's fine. I don't own the DS because it has better battery life, but 3 hours would be troublesome. I mean hell, my town flooded a couple of months ago, and I couldn't go back home for a night. My GBA SP hadn't been charged in a while and it still lasted a few hours as I waited in my car for the water to recede.

To me a portable system is about versatility, and a shorter battery life means more maintainance and less versatility.

Another part of this debate is that Sony breaks their promises, and everyone lets them get away with it. The PSP does not last 10 hours. The PS2 cannot render Toy Story in real time. The PS2 HDD cannot download music and movies. And so on.

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[Zigg]

Just so you know -- you can already buy replacement DS batteries from Nintendo, for when it does eventually start losing its capacity. But it seems to be largely similar to the GBA SP battery, and mine is still going ridiculously strong after 10 months. Having played a classic GBA with AA's (both alkaline and NiMH), the built-in battery is clearly superior in both cost and convenience. Of course, if your system out of the box won't even last for a typical business flight including layovers, well, then you've got a bit of a problem.

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[be-fan]

And I would be surprised if a game that looks like Super Mario 64 DS wouldn't run for well more than 3 hours on the PSP. :P

So true. Something like Mario DS wouldn't use more than a quarter of the power of the PSP, and you could load half the game into RAM at a time and still have as much RAM as the DS left over. I bet under those conditions, the PSP's battery life would be comparable to the numbers posted by IGN.

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[be-fan]

That's not a fair comparison. You can't compare the PSP running a graphically rich game for 1.5-3 hours straight to the DS running a graphically rich (for the DS) game for 6 hours straight. The PSP's graphics are much better, so it's not surprising you need to trade some battery life. If you're running games at the same level of complexity as what you could run on the DS, the numbers are much more even.

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[Lehk228]

And I would be surprised if a game that looks like Super Mario 64 DS wouldn't run for well more than 3 hours on the PSP. :P

and those fancier graphics sure will be appreciated when it has to recharge or swap batteries every three hours. The Game gear had far better sound and video than GameBoy but it failed because battery life was far too short. If I have to plan for when my battery dies next when my game is fully charged the battery life is too short

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[Quobobo]

You can't compare them like that? Bull.

It was a perfectly valid comparison when the Game Gear was released (with its great graphics and battery life of about 30 minutes), and it's still a valid comparison now. If Sony knew they weren't going to get acceptable battery life on the PSP, they should have made it differently.

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[be-fan]

Wait, you're accusing the PSP of having "rehashed crap"? What exactly do you think every game on the Advance and DS are? Heck, Mario 64 DS and Ridge Racers aren't even rehashes --- they are the same games!

Beyond that, you're underestimating the DS's battery life, while overestimating the PSP's. The PSP will give you 3 hours running graphically challenging games, while the DS will not give you more than 8 under the same conditions.

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[be-fan]

The game gear didn't have dynamic clock scaling. All games would get only a couple of hours, even GameBoy-level ones. There was no way to do an even comparison. The PSP, on the other hand, can run both graphically complex games and graphically simple games, and it's battery life is different for each. So to do an even comparison, you should compare both playing the same sort of game.

Re:GameSpot reports otherwise...

[InvalidError]

The PS2's HDD does not care about what people put on it any more than "regular" HDDs do... Sony is only not providing (obvious) ways for users to do this out-of-the-box. One needs third-party tools to do this on the X-box as well, the main difference being that the PS2 does not ship standard with HDD.

Where do I send my CV?

[ZZeta]

Oh my! Are they hiring??

Let me get this straight. There's someone out there whose job is to play until the game runs out of a battery? Is he a lucky bastard or what?!

Sure, sure, go on, tell me he'll be tired someday. Whatever. When that day comes, I'll be the first to send out my resumé ;)

Re:Where do I send my CV?

[mitchellandrews]

Don't get too happy, you'd be out of a job in 5 hours...tops!

And you trust... IGN?

[juuri]

Of course Gamespot says the battery life is a bit more variable than that.

For those not playing at home IGN has had some incredibly biased coverage in this recent round of handheld launches going so far as to "talk down" about the Nintendo DS on the actual DS portion of IGN. While both portable gaming systems kick ass, they do it in different ways, the rampant fanboyism at IGN is somewhat sickening, especially given than when it was first started, way back as Next Generation and even before then when the site was run off a college server it was known to being one of the first gaming sites to push honest opinions.

Re:And you trust... IGN?

[TLSPRWR]

It's not really 'fanboyism,' it's who pays them the most money. Remember the McIGN 'partnership'?

Re:Sony will no doubt release a better battery lat

[ayersrj]

Yeah I was wondering the same thing. My Sony Laptop (which ironically was rated at 2.5 hours and only got me an hour tops) had a new higher capacity battery released for it shortly after, which also costed a good chunk. Thankfully I was able to get one for free because I screamed at tech support long enough.

Turn the system on after use, and off before.

[me at werk]

I love this journal. First, they decide to give you times in American West Coast (PST) for no reason, as they're in japan, and time of day here matters not to anyone when the test is taking place in day/night conditions in japan. Could someone post the article but translate the times to Japan time, so that their actions make sense logically?

Also, they've made a few, how do you say, mistakes?

4:30AM: Stopped MP3 use

4:30AM: Status Report
- Battery remaining: 76%
- Full brightness time remaining: 3:43
- Low brightness time remaining: 4:42

4:30AM: Turned System On

6:00AM: Turned System Off

6:00AM: Played Games
Played Minna no Golf and Armored Core at full brightness.

That part sure confused me.

Re:Turn the system on after use, and off before.

[antifoidulus]

Japan is over the international dateline, +17 hours west coast(14 east cost), so for example, right now it is 6:20 am Tuesday Japan time.

Re:Turn the system on after use, and off before.

[antifoidulus]

why not give the reference from somewhere important, instead of from the coasts of a country most of the world hates?
Um, please read the grandparent's post before trolling next time, he was asking for relation via the west coast. Thanks for trolling on an internet site that is based in the country you love to hate, please troll again real soon.

Re:Yeah but...

[antifoidulus]

Heh, I know it's a joke, but TFA does mention that much like Apple laptops(don't know if others do this as well, probably do) if the battery level drops below a certain point, the PSP will put itself to sleep, allowing you to resume your adventures provided you charge it within a reasonable amount of time.

Now we now there are TWO issues with PSP!

[Zangief]

What about a Loading time journal?

Best part - Armored Core sucks

[apachetoolbox]

7:45AM: Stopped playing games Realized that you don't actually control mechs in Armored Core, so decided to stop playing.

yeah that about summed up armored core for everyone else to :)

Re:Best part - Armored Core sucks

[nitehorse]

oh man. I still love those games.

giant robot combat with lasers and missiles. ::sigh::

such good times.

Re:PSP?

[FuzzzyLogik]

Live under a rock? Seriously READ THE F'IN ARTICLE! And if you're still too lazy to do that... It's The PlayStation Portable. Basically a a handheld version of something between a PS1 and a PS2. *sigh*

Re:They should keep a history

[wizbit]

Wow, WIKIPEDIA! Thanks, AC!

Actually, the memory effect article you linked to talks about mem effect on nickel-cads. And again, this is a lithium ion battery, which doesn't suffer from it to the same degree (or so I've read).

ukresist has some funny images about the PSP

[joeldg]

http://ukresistance.co.uk/
I love the people packing around the car batteries to be able to use their PSP's hah.
direct link to images:
http://ukresistance.co.uk/pics2/pspbattery.jpg
http://ukresistance.co.uk/pics2/somepossiblefuture .jpg

Re:ukresist has some funny images about the PSP

[Kenshin]

OMG... when did UK Resistance come back?
I thought they'd died LONG AGO.

Awesome..

[sinner0423]

Now that we've got everyone talking about battery life of the PSP - what about DRM? I threw my MiniDisc player in the garbage, after the headaches I had to endure with the software / copy protection.

I'm not trolling, one of the selling points of the PSP is the fact that you can load up all kinds of user created content on it.

I'd hate to purchase one just to find out that I have to do it Sony's way, or no way. I really don't want to make another one of those expensive mistakes.

Re:Awesome..

[Graemee]

I threw my MiniDisc player in the garbage,

Dude, that's called Ebay

Re:Awesome..

[sinner0423]

Honestly, I wouldn't wish the MD player on anyone, let alone some poor unsuspecting fool on ebay. I did get some use out of it, but got caught up in the hype when they first came out.

After the casing starting coming apart, the buttons started to recess in to the unit, I just figured it wasn't worth my time to even toss it on ebay, and threw it out. The draconian copy protection was just the icing on the cake.

Re:Awesome..

[Cybervoid]

According to Tim Rogers in this article you can just plug it into your USB port and it acts like a removable disk. Just copy your MP3 files over and play.

Re:Awesome..

[be-fan]

The PSP plays regular old MP3 files off the MemoryStick.

Optical Media (MD) and Battery Lift

[acomj]

Optical media works fine for the MD player when you could get 40+ hours out of a single aa.

But Sony's not using there new "not catching on" 1 gig MD discs but another probably more power hungry disc type for fear of piracy. When will they learn.

Re:Optical Media (MD) and Battery Lift

[UWC]

Optical media works fine for the MD player when you could get 40+ hours out of a single aa.

Then there's the fact that a full cache of compressed audio lasts longer between required disc reads than the video, textures, models, animations, etc. necessary for a game. Add to that the increased power drawn from the processor to make use of all of that and the large, well-lit screen, and the short battery life, if not excusable, is at least understandable.

Another approach

[Vvornth]

The low battery time is only an issue the months right after the system's launch. Because I can guarantee you that if Sony doesn't release an alternate battery, third part assecory developers won't be late to profit from it. Thus, I am far more interested in the physical constraints involved in changing the battery.

Re:Another approach

[ayersrj]

My understanding is that replacing the battery is pretty simple (as is the case with the DS and SP.) So that shouldn't be a worry. You're right on the money though, someone is out there trying to design the first high-capacity battery.

Re:PSP?

[FuzzzyLogik]

Well the reason I am wondering if you live under a rock is because there has only been about 5 articles a week on the PSP in some form or another on slashdot. Along with many other sites like Engadget and Gizmodo

Re:End of Ninshito?

[ThomaMelas]

Wanting Grand Thief Auto is good...but lets be honest, why would you want BMX XXX? Are you that hard up for porn?

What do you expect?

[scolby]

Not only is it translating data from the media, running a screen, and accepting input from the user, it's also making a disk spin extremely fast. Sounds like a battery sucker to me.

Re:Bias

[Ayaress]

Not laughing, actually. IGN isn't really high on my list of sites that I don't automatically assume are wrong. I've seen too many examples of them outright lying not to take this with a grain of salt. But it really has me wondering: Sony themselves were talking aobut FAR less battery life than IGN is reporting. That really sounds off. Sony is the last company to understate their products. If you could realistically expect 5 hours from the PSP, I would expect them to be talking about ten to fifteen hours, not two, one, and less like they have been. Anyway, I'm still waiting to hear about the moving parts issues. Battery life was the least of my worries. I feel very uncomfortable carrying something around in my pocket or bookbag that could be susceptible to shock damage, and I don't want to have to go and modify my laptop bag again to make a padded spot for one.

PSP is a grand slam for Sony

[evil-empir3]

i got one in Shinjuku on launch day and played Ridge Racers for a solid 4 hours and some time just dinking around before the battery crapped out. i'm perfectly satisfied with that performance. i see a lot of PSP bashing from people that don't even have one. i think that once you have one in your hands, you'll whistle a different tune. i like the DS, but the PSP experience is light years ahead of the DS experience.

MOD PARENT UP!

[Spy der Mann]

+5, funny.

PSP Battery journal

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone more familiar with this subject than me want to explain why there're so many Paintshop Pro articles on slashdot at the moment?

5 hours at best? I will stick with my GBA then.

[Jagasian]

My GBA gets near 20 hours of battery life! I can basically take it on a vacation and not have to worry about bring along the recharging equipment.

Re:Yeah but...

[koniosis]

Windows Laptops do indeed do this as well, though sleep can be hibernate or suspend to ram usually. With hibernate you can leave the power off as long as you like, since the memory is written to disk and reloaded the next time you power up (don't know what sort of sleep Apple tops do).

Re:peh

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

I will tell you from personal experence that the battery life on the ds is more than 10 hours, I ran mine for 13 hours on a single charge. oh and to games not being 'adult' enought i point you here

Gamespot says 90 minutes in real life tests

[_KiTA_]

Accordig to reports from Gamespot, the battery lasts approximately an hour and a half to 3 hours playing a complex 3d game like Ridge Racer. The benchmarks from Sony apparently come from using non-graphically intense, small games that don't require much CPU, VPU, or disc read time.

Sony did similar things when they were releasing benchmarks of the Playstation 2 -- they turned off all lights in the room, and rendered a black triangle polygon in a black room. The numbers were amazing. But they weren't real at all.

So yeah. PSP Battery Life: 90 minutes. This drops further if you enable WIFI.

Q: How long does the PSP's battery last?

A: The short answer is that it depends on what you're doing. The longer answer is that Sony has stated that the battery should last around six hours. With simpler-looking games, like Lumines or Mahjong Fight Club, that definitely seems to be the case. But with more graphically intensive games, like Ridge Racers, the battery doesn't last quite as long. Based on our estimates and a few battery-draining tests, Ridge Racers seems to last somewhere between 90 minutes and three hours. Playing with the wireless networking switch flipped on will also further reduce your battery life. The system has an auto-sleep function that stops the wireless drain, but that switch is there for a reason. Turn it off when you're not using it.

Re:Gamespot says 90 minutes in real life tests

[91degrees]

Ah yes. I worked at a 3D chip company. We always paid special attention to our competitors' small print. 1 zillion triangles per second. If they were unlit untextured and assuming quite a lot of overdraw. All hardware has a theoretical maximum, and it's usually possible to get it to hit that, but not if you want to do anything useful.

Re:Gamespot says 90 minutes in real life tests

[iapetus]

Well, clearly Gamespot aren't accurate, are they? I think I'll take the actual experiments with real-world games produced by IGN over the guesstimates based on a system with no games provided by Gamespot.

I'm sure they'll be providing their own real figures now they've got their hands on the real thing.

Re:Gamespot says 90 minutes in real life tests

[Kirby-meister]

Dude,

1) Gamespot had a PSP and ran tests with Ridge Racer to get their estimates, along with wi-fi, and

2) They mention other games like Lumines to show it has a longer battery life with less-graphically intensive games.

Re:Gamespot says 90 minutes in real life tests

[iapetus]

Don't know what they were doing wrong, then, because I know for certain that people are playing RR for longer than 3 hours.

"Coworker played Ridge Racers for 4 hours straight last night, and he says he has like a 25% charge left. OH MY GOD the screen is SO BEAUTIFUL. Shit, my will to not buy one of these until the next model iteration is really slipping."

Re:Yeah but...

[tonejava]

Great, so you get 5 hours if you don't turn on wifi.

You would probably be recommended to have it plugged in to use Wi-fi which kind of kills the concept of portable gaming ;-)

I noticed the remark about the headphones and remote being not too good can anyone else clarify this?

Why fight it?

[ylsul]

You-will-own-both PSP and DS.
Feel your will crumble. ...my will is gone. I'm definitely buying both... ...i have no life+

Re:Sony will no doubt release a better battery lat

[tonejava]

And let me guess with this new battery it will recommend you don't play games while filling up at the petrol station, or near a gas stove, or only children 12 and up can handle the PSP with this battery and and don't forget the lead lined suit!

Re:PSP?

[ka9dgx]

If you read the article with your reply in mind, you'd quickly notice that PSP is not defined in the article.

Thanks for playing, try again later.

--Mike--

Re:Yeah but...

[barawn]

With Wifi, though, putting itself to sleep is quite possibly the worst thing you could imagine, as when it goes to sleep, it breaks the network connection. With Wifi on, you'd want it to stay active as long as it possibly could.

The title says Sony PSP but...

[gbdc]

the Slashdot Icon still shows Nintendo... old old Nintendo

Isn't it a bit insensitive, eh ?

Sorry if I made you feel sarcastic.

Re:Yeah but...

[karstux]

I'd rather break the network connection than damage the accu. Even though li-ion-accus don't suffer from memory effect, they don't take kindly to deep-discharge.

Re:peh

[tonejava]

And competition is always healthy for any product - if Sony hadn't released the PSP I'm sure Nintendo would have taken a bit longer to deliver the DS.

Now, Nintendo better deliver with the Revolution because they know what the market wants and what gaming is all about!

Re:peh

[tonejava]

I have yet to see a single battery review or spec for Nintendo DS, anyone have a legit link?

I think if there were any problems with the DS battery then we would have heard about it by now.

Gah

[Khuffie]

I really think Sony missed the boat on this one. Short battery life, load times and the outrageous price of the 'value' pack (which you basically need to play games), really hurt the PSP in my opinion. I'll probably end up getting it eventually, but not anytime soon.

Most of my portable gaming is done on planes, and my trips take between 18-30 hours. Now i've played about 8 hours of my DS without having to charge, and the LED indicating low battery life hasn't popped on yet. Granted the DS probably won't last the whole trip, but 90 minuts / 3 hours for ridge racer? BS!

Re:Yeah but...

[barawn]

If it sleeps so you can preserve your game, it wasn't in the deep-discharge regime, because it believed it had usable power left (that it used for sleep mode rather than going hard power-off). That usable power should be used to play, even if it's only a few seconds. A few seconds could be one more frag, after all.

A cutoff to avoid deep-discharge should be a hard power-off, rather than just a force into sleep mode. Most devices that use Li-Ions do have a low-voltage cutoff to prevent batteries from going into deep discharge.

And the thing is..

[PeelBoy]

People will be buying this thing mainly to play those graphically intense games. Right? I mean that seems like the whole point of this things..

Things are only going to get worse. New games will probably have higher and higher load times with more and more graphics and the battery lifes going to get worse and worse.

By what the gamespot article said it sounds like 90 mins was still with the wi-fi turned off.. Hmm

I can live with a short battery life...

[BitwizeGHC]

provided it's enough for me to get my Lumines on.

Re:Yeah but...

[nofx_3]

Yes, but we are talking about wifi usage here, so I'm going to assume the grandparent was talking about a multiplayer quest, it which case one user running out of battery could be catastrophic to a whole guild of nerds on a never ending quest to save their "girlfriends". Of course most nerds probably don't have the problem (the girlfriend, they still have the battery life problems).

-kaplanfx

Re:peh

[clu76]

I think if there were any problems with the DS battery then we would have heard about it by now.

Agreed. Same is true about load times.

Re:Sony will no doubt release a better battery lat

[dbacher]

Or a 3rd party will.

Re:Yeah but...

[infinite9]

With wifi, the battery life is variable

If you were doing your job, she wouldn't need battery operated toys in the first place.

Re:Bias

[dbacher]

5 hours of playing MP3's, though. If you look at the diary, a lot of their time appears to be related to playing MP3's.

On my TapWave, I can listen to MP3's for a long time without running down the battery, because playing a MP3 requires virtually no processor time. I would guess that if you played a lot of MP3's and played fewer games, you could stretch the batter life a lot.

Only in first/commercial class flights.

[digital photo]

For coach and other discount flyers, there is no such thing as a DC port for your laptop or game adapters.

You'll only get this in the first class, executive/business/commercial class flights on most airlines.

And you call yourself a geek....

[ddsoul]

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/5a68/ is all you need...

Re:And you call yourself a geek....

[Borg_5x8]

I live in England - do thinkgeek do a solar panel that's powered by grey overcast clouds?

Re:peh

[Lord Kano]

I wish Sony well, but history shows that they do face an uphill battle. It's going to be HARD to unseat Nintendo. They are currently and have been for about 15 years now, the king of the handheld hill.

Sega, Atari, NEC, SNK, Nokia, and a few others have had their asses thoroughly kicked by Nintendo in the handheld market.

LK

Interesting PSP observations

[thatguywhoiam]

I too have been looking around at the various 'reviews' popping up online. The PSP looks pretty nice, but everyone should keep in mind that they are not really aimed at the same audience.

The PSP is overpowered as a game machine. Obviously Nintendo knows the magic formula for handheld games is to keep it simple, innovate with the control scheme, and keep your battery life up at the expense of nearly everything else. As a pure game machine, the NDS probably wins in the long run (literally).

However - and its a big however - the PSP is not just a game machine. Sony has made some gut-wrenching design decisions (for them, anyways) to keep this thing open to its users... and the result is actually aimed more at the nascent phone game market, the GameBoy market, the portable audio and video market, and the wireless connectivity market. Its trying to carve a new niche, and this is exactly what Sony is good at.

Witness: a plain USB port with full standards-compliant access to the memory card as a drive volume. Regular folders named with things like 'photos' and 'music'. The screen - which is much better than the DS - is something I could easily see as superior against an iPod Photo. WiFi - the verdict is still out on how this will expand - but its standard, and not some proprietary version. MP3 support, also a major shift from Sony's ATRAC3 (although I guess it will play that too).

And finally let us not ignore the fact that it ships with white headphones. This can mean only one thing: invasion.

As for battery life, it looks pretty good to me, as I rarely play my PS2 for more than 3 hours (ahem) at a time... but that is personally a subjective thing. I do think its still to early to measure realistically as it will likely go up as programmers learn the tricks necessary to optimize/minimize battery drain. (Of course it might go down again as they all try to compete with Metal Gear Acid).

And finally, if you can find a plug, the game equation vs. the DS is a no-brainer if you ask me (peanut gallery: no one did.). The PSP is more capable graphically and those optical cartridges will lay waste to the tiny memory storage of a DS cartridge. The impromptu WiFiLAN party will rock with one of these.

So for me - the DS is neat, I like it. But I've never bought a GameBoy or any other portable game system because I don't want to carry just one gadget for that specific purpose. If it keeps some music, my picures (in a nice display), plays movies and really cool games, and does even a little WiFi access.. hell yeah, I'll take one.

Re:Interesting PSP observations

[Trackster]

Yep, you hit the nail on the head. Sony's playing its cards carefully and trying to carve a new niche. They're trying to scrub off some of DS's market but they're carefull enough not to take Nintendo head on. Instead they're working to make it appeal to a broader market in two aspects.

1)By adding features like photo viewing, movie and music playback they're trying to ring in those who otherwise wouldn't be as inclined to buy a portable game system.

2)The system's physical design (and marketing) is meant to be "mature" so as to make it more appealing to those adults who may feel a bit insecure about having and playing a "video game."

In the 80's gaming was seen exclusively a "kid's" domain so Game Gear didn't have access to the same kind of market that PSP has today.

The PSP should fly, even if it doesn't even reach the altitudes of GBA's and DS's.

3rd party batts ?

[PureCreditor]

for now, the batt life might suck on PSP, but if a 3rd party can come up with a batt comparable with DS, then we can finally compare them fairly instead of :

the DS camp accusing PSP of low batt life, disc media instead of nonvolatile, and lack of attractive titles, and

PSP camp mocking DS of weak hardware specs, thick bulky profile, and the same Mario and Pokemon games all over again

it sucks that both machines have enough disadvantages to turn me off....sigh...

Re:3rd party batts ?

[iapetus]

Both camps are crack-smoking fanboys who care more about their favourite company than they do about the games. Look at any feedback from PSP owners and they're gushing about the games. The Ridge Racer game is a real throwback to the days when the series was good. Lumines is a work of puzzling genius. Disc media aren't causing any problems, and the best part of six hours of battery life (the story submitter either can't read, or can't add an hour and four and three quarters hours together in his head) is perfectly respectable as far as I'm concerned - and if you don't agree, get yourself a second battery to keep charged, and you've got something that'll stay charged as long as your DS.

As for the DS, sure, it's underpowered compared to the PSP if brute force is all you're about. But the dual-screen and touch-sensitive nature opens it up to all sorts of neat gameplay features, and it's far from just being the same Mario and Pokemon games all over again (and with yet another Hot Shots Golf game, the seventeen millionth Armoured Core title of the year* and the sixth Ridge Racer game on a Sony system the Sony fans might not want to be throwing any stones...)

If you're about the games, then both machines have plenty to offer. My preference is for PSP, because that's where the games that I want most seem to be appearing. But you should be thanking your lucky gaming stars that we've finally got some decent competition in the handheld market that's going to drive both sides to produce.

* - May not be strictly true.

Re:3rd party batts ?

[snuf23]

Sure it could! Just slap the 4400mAh battery on there! Might be a little heavy, but all the power you would need. Besides the heaviness will make it feel like a solid well constructed product. Not to mention since you won't be able to hold it for 4 hours, your actual battery life will be even longer!

Re:3rd party batts ?

[cd0272]

Man have u ever heard of something called a palm pilot. They have everything u need games picture takeing music and movies, u should look into palms plus their usually cheaper then a psp. I know there are some exceptions. But there is an exception to everything.

Re:3rd party batts ?

[PureCreditor]

first of all, i've owned 2 palms before - a Palm IIIc and a Sony Clie NX60.

claiming a palm can replace psp is same as claiming a cell phone can browse the web - it can BARELY do the job, let alone doing the job well.

yes a palm can do everything other than a kitchen sink - pda, cell phone, bluetooth, wifi, SD, CF, 480x320, camera, video recorder, web browser, even photo editor, right ?

let's talk about each of them :

1) pda - today it's about split with WinCE / PocketPC, depends on how u measure market share
2) cell phone - the treo is a HUGE device
3) bluetooth - who can't
4) wifi - sucks up batt life on the radio, and the screen res too low to view a regular site
5) 480x320 - WinCE has VGA
6) camera - will u go on a trip taking 640x480 shots on a CMOS cam ?
7) video recorder - 160x120 is such a good resolution to watch someone's wedding
8) web browser - again, sites need at least 640 width to render without excessing horizontal scrolling
9) photo editor - MS Photo Editor can do better

the point is - just because a convergence can do everything doesn't mean u can throw away every other gadget you own.

I have a laptop, a cell phone, a PDA, an iPod, and I see them complementing each other instead of fighting each other's turfs. The treo650 is as close u can get as an omni-covergence device - it does everything with mediocrity.

WTF is a PSP?

[necro2607]

The least the poster could do is make "PSP" a link to the product's official site for people who don't know every single Acronym Of The Week(tm)...

Re:peh

[UWC]

None of those had the near complete mindshare in the TV console scene that Sony does now, though. Ask most any serious gamer, and if their primary system is not PS2, then they'll most likely at least own one, with the exception of people who own just an XBox and Halo (and of course Halo 2), who are unlikely to buy a handheld anyway. The best case was Sega, which was probably about even with Nintendo in the 16-bit console days. The Game Gear's battery-guzzling was not only the annoyance that the PSP might be, but also was expensive. 6 AA batteries is not a trivial expense for a few hours of play, and rechargeables at the time were slow to recharge and underpowered. Plus, Game Gear did not have Tetris, and was huge and heavy. This round, there's no killer app, and the PSP is about the same size as a closed DS, and considerably sleeker.

I agree, though, that Sony does have to put up a fight, but the situation is not nearly as grim as it was for most of the previous competitors.

Re:5 hours at best? I will stick with my GBA then.

[Borg_5x8]

I just take my GBA SPs USB charger (gotta love lik-sang) everywhere with it- wherever you go is sure to have a USB port SOMEWHERE.
(hell, someone always manages to take a laptop camping...)

Why do you care?

[DeadScreenSky]

I beg to differ. I don't want another device I have to remeber to charge every night if I want to use it the next day. My cell phone, palm, and laptop are enough.

Then you probably aren't in the market for a portable gaming machine, now are you?

How did this got modded up to +5 Insightful? I am not planning on buying a PSP, DS, or GBA anytime in the future as I rarely travel. Oooh! Give me points, moderators! I'm insightful!

Re:peh

[kesuki]

The only 'legit' links i've found are from cnet, and pc mag, and knowing cnet them they probabbly didn't charge the battery to 'full' before testing, and they may have even had wi-fi turned on for the entire duration (hard to say as they didn't mention any of the testing conditions)
PC mag on the otherhand got 8 1/2 hours in 'informal' testing, and they did charge the battery to full prior to playing.
I've heard of people getting ten or mour hours of gameplay time on a DS, on slashdot, but likely they were playing GBA games on the DS, rather than DS games (while cnet and pc mag were testing DS carts, not GBA cart batt life...)
http://reviews.cnet.com/Nintendo_DS/4505-6464_7-30 895578-2.html?tag=glance
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1730092,00.as p
People are bitching about load times too, but hey the load times are comperable to ps2 titles, so if you can cope with ps2 load times then psp load times shouldn't bug you much.
From what I can tell the PSP's battery is exclusively for keeping your system running while you head to the next power supply, unless you run it as a memory stick based mp3 player, a 2 GB memory stick will run you about $300 and of course every mp3 you want to put on it will only play in sony portable mp3 players, and only on the memory stick you originally copied them onto using sony's DRM software.

This reminds me...

[Unloaded]

... of my old Atari Lynx. I have one of the originals, and the best I could get for battery life was 90 minutes on 6 AA's. Later, they released an extended battery pack that plugged into the AC adapter port and held 6 D batteries. Imagine carrying a handheld the size of a Lynx, and a battery pack that weighed more than the biggest Mag-Lite and you get the idea.

Hopefully Sony wont make that mistake.

Ok.. please stop the whining?

[AzraelKans]

Come on people the PSP is a portable CD based handheld with an intensive GPU and a WI-FI its not like a palm, ds, gba,ngage etc e of course the battery lasts a lot less than in any other device! it has rotating spinning disk! if thats an impediment for you DONT BUY IT. We are completely aware of the battery problem, ok?

If you think the system is going to "tank" stop worrying, its already sold out in Japan(although it was a limited release) and apparently it will sold out in America as well, theres a good library of games coming and they will be less greedy with the spinning disk usage (which will help the battery).

Every single review and user review says the same, the battery is a bit of a problem since it needs a daily recharge and the loading times are weird in a handheld (not unbareable, just unusual) still not of those is a show stopper the system is definetily great and extremely fun to use, not only is the equivalent of a portable ps2 It can also be used as a digital camera a mp3 player (with bad reviews on that mind you) and an storage device with usb support so is definetily not a bad buy for the average tech freakie

p.s. Look some people would not be caught dead using a non nintendo handheld, while others wont even touch a DS even if it was 10 times less expensive. So lets just break even and let our throats alone ok?. you play with yours I play with mine, ok? good.

Re:Ok.. please stop the whining?

[Lavaeolus]

If you think the system is going to "tank" stop worrying, its already sold out in Japan

Virtually every games console sells out on release in Japan (if I recall correctly, even the Sega Dreamcast managed this). Manufacturers make sure that their machine sells out, because it would be a huge blow to their credibility if it was left on the shelves at launch. I suspect that this is the main reason Sony released the PSP in limited numbers, rather than waiting for their production plants to manufacture enough units.

Personally, I find it useful to know other potential purchasers' views on a new console. People will not buy a PSP if the battery life is an issue for them. If relatively few people buy a PSP then developers will back away from making games for the platform, and even fewer people buy it as a result. This has killed many a console in the past.

Sorry to be so pessimistic, but I think I will wait until the PSP has become more established before spending my hard-earned cash on one.

Re:Virtual Boy

[bitwiseNomad]

Nintendo's last off shoot from the game boy line led to a piece of shit. This one will most likely be considered in the same category in a year or so.

If i remember correctly, there were less than 20 games produced for the Virtual Boy during its entire life. At this point, I believe the DS has the support of over 50 (I think it's closer to 100) 3rd party developers. I'm willing to bet the story will be a little different this time.

Re:5 hours, good? my god.

[iapetus]

1) Six hours, not five. Almost five hours of intensive gaming plus an hour of MP3 playing in the IGN journal.

2) Actually, the battery is replaceable. You can buy a spare, pop it out and put in the replacement, something that you can't do with the GBA SP.

Thanks for playing, though.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Not to shabby? You must have had low expectations

[Rize]

I don't even take handhelds out of the house 95% of the time and a 5 hour battery life would really suck. If I planned to actually take the thing places, 5 hours would not cut it at all.

Re:STOP using undefined acronyms!

[urbaer]

Hmmm... clearly a troll, but hey... I'll explain... ;)

PSP stands for Portable Sans Power (the article should have given this away). This is a very clever acronym as it is also the noise you make after you've played Ridge Racer for 2 hours.

PSP also stands for precision spectral pyranometer, a pyranometer with an outer clear dome that can be replaced by colored domes that transmit specific bandwidths of the solar spectrum. [Ah... Google... how else could you find out trivia you never wanted to know?]

DS stands for Dream System, it's like a portable Dreamcast (which is why SEGA managed to produce a game which shows off it's capabilities before Nintendo could).

Re:ign != next gen

[Ryokurin]

actually hes right. I cannot comment on the college server part but next generation site was folded into daily radar which went into ign which originally ment imagine games network.

hmm... portables?

[Pwned]

Long car trips? All you need is a cigarette adapater and you can watch dvds, type, code, play brand new pc games. Play fallout 2. You know, whatever. Great system. Called a Laptop. Some of them have even got pretty good batteries I hear. And third party games and stuff. Should check it out.

Battery replacement and product safety

[tepples]

the battery in the GBA SP is replaceable only it's not so simple as flipping a panel to slip in the new battery - something Nintendo should consider for the next gen Game boy

What do you mean? It's as easy as open door, remove old battery, insert new battery, replace door, and charge. If you're referring to the screw that holds the battery access door in place, then under at least one country's product safety regulations, any battery-powered product marketed to children must require a tool that is sold separately in order to open the battery access door. In the case of a GBA SP, this tool is a Philips size #00 screwdriver, available at your local hardware store in a set of "precision" screwdrivers.

Re:Battery replacement and product safety

[tonejava]

How many people take a (or are allowed to take) a screwdriver with them on a plane? How many people carry one in their back pocket? Can you stop by the corner store and pick up a replacement?

I realise standard batteries just won't cut it with todays devices and I think it's about time we saw some advances in batteries to make them more suitable [for todays devices].

Here in Australia you can only get a replacement battery direct from Nintendo and in all of Australia there is only 1 Nintendo office - Melbourne, Victoria. For me thats 2 states away.

Re:Battery replacement and product safety

[tepples]

How many people take a (or are allowed to take) a screwdriver with them on a plane?

Tell that to regulators who come up with safety guidelines similar to these.

I think it's about time we saw some advances in batteries to make them more suitable [for todays devices].

You study chemical engineering and try to come up with a better rechargeable battery formulation. You could make some big money that way by selling the patent to a battery company.

Re:peh

[GPB]

I consider myself a serious gamer, and my primary systems are a GameCube and a PC. I do not own a PS2 or an Xbox.

-B

Game Gear Analogy May Not Hold Now

[blueZhift]

Many here have been raising the spectre of the infamously battery hungry Sega Game Gear with respect to PSP battery life. But I don't think that we're going to see a replay of the GG failure not so much because the PSP will have stellar battery life, but because our cultural expectations have changed. One poster here made mention of all of the things that he/she has to charge daily, cell phone, mp3 player, and laptop.

In other words, we're used to charging things up every day! And since the PSP has a rechargeable battery, no one is really going to feel the same kind of pain the GG induced back in the '80s. The PSP could give the DS a good run for the money if it delivers on the software and movies, etc...

Re:peh

[Lord Kano]

In my experience most serious gamers play PC games. Many of them also play XBox, PS2, or GC as well.

LK

Re:Sony will no doubt release a better battery lat

[xshader]

Of course it is natural for everyone would go buy the first machine, then go buy the second updated one, and then go buy the next one after. They have so many good fucking games and the hardware is good quality. What sane minded consumer wouldn't?

Re:5 hours, good? my god.

[News for nerds]

You can replace a battery in PSP, unlike NDS. Buy a spare one, period.

Re:ign != next gen

[juuri]

It's not nice to correct people when you are in fact, wrong.

Re:PSP's Batery IS replaceable Read the specs

[ryouki]

That is entirly incorrect.
I own a PSP and the batteries are replaceable.

With 3 batteries it is possible to play the PSP for LONGER than the DS.

Now of course their batteris are for PSP only, you cant say pull the battery of of say, a Digital camera, but unlike my nintendo portables I CAN replace the battery.

Also unlike the offerings from nintindo they PSP uses standard interfaces. I don't have to buy headphones or memory cards, or PC link cables to interface with the PSP.

Will the DS interface my MAC, I don't think so.

Re:peh

[ajservo]

I'm sure you'd much prefer adult games like GTA, Manhunt, or Killswitch. Cause a game isn't innovative or adult unless there's swearing, blood, and murder involved.

Now, for a portable? I like me some puzzle games, mini games, and RTS games.

So that's going to get covered REAL fast by Nintendo.

Drill Spirits, Wario Ware DS, and Advance Wars DS.

You can have your long load times for a fighting game, that's fine by me.

My conditions for getting a PSP? 6 hour minimum battery life for any settings (they've said firmware upgrades can get this there.), good game line up (the japanese lineup had 2 games in it I would even consider getting, and those were (meh) games at best IMO, and finally, innovative games. Last thing I need is a rehash of GTA, MGS, or some other craptacular port of a PS2 game on a handheld. Unless they want to port SEGA games that is... I'll take Crazy Taxi, REZ, and Sonic Adventure pls.

Re:5 hours, good? my god.

[sqrt(2)]

1) Wow, six hours! No one will ever use that much. Sorry that's still not enough, at least for me.

2)You can by a spare SP battery.

Oops, are you a troll?

PSP power issues.

[Schmapdi]

So the PSP has a battery life of minutes big deal. It also causes nearby lights to dim, drains the batteries of other devices (pacemakers, etc) and if four players try to play a game together over the wifi it will cause a small, but noticeable black spot on the sun. But damn it looks neat.

Re:PSP power issues.

[Schmapdi]

Sorry 'bout my double post, my seven key doesn't work well, and previews be damned.

PSP power issues.

[Schmapdi]

It has a battery life of 7 minutes. It will drain the power of other nearby devices causing street lights to flicker and pacemakers to go off. Plus, if four players try to play together via the wifi, it will cause a small but noticeable black spot on the sun. But damn it's shiny.

Re:peh

[bitwiseNomad]

I am a serious gamer, and I do not own an Xbox. I do own a PS2 with about 5 games that rarely get played. I doubt I will be getting a PS3 or a PSP.

/. stupid posters and stupid editors

[SmallFurryCreature]

Geez. First the idiot directly above. The battery is easily swappable. It is a custom battery but it is an open compartment and it doesn't look like you need a tool. This is sony. They know handhelds. They have been doing special batteries that can be swapped for longer then anybody else. Next is the slashdot article it self. The article has almost 5 hours of gameplay, that much is true BUT it also has an hour of mp3 playing. So what does that make actual game time? Who knows. This was a stupid test. After all this test includes numerous boots and shutoffs not straight gaming. Neither did they just game. Is the battery life any good? Well it ain't an iPod or similar that's for sure but it doesn't compare to badly with my gba+afterburner especially considering the increased screen size. Is it long enough? For short work commutes, sure. For a plane flight or long train journey? You need to take some extra batteries with you. It is hardly as bad as other handhelds that tried to compete with the gameboy but it isn't quit up to gameboy standards. Personally I think the far more impressive graphics are a perfectly acceptable excuse for the lesser battery time. For my own typical use it is enough. I would simply plug it in along with my phone and mp3 player. Price might be a bigger obstacle. I was really disappointed with the GBA and the games and their prices. I only played the real quality titles during commutes. Will sony be charging console prices (I am a PC player) for these games or even higher? At the moment it will have to compete for me with buying a portable movie player (the iRiver linux one looks so sweet). Will have to see how easy it is to watch downloaded content on the PSP.

Insightful?

[SmallFurryCreature]

WTF?

What is insightfull about this? Is sony supposed to make PSP that works on absorbing brainwaves? Wouldn't work on this guy.

The PSP has a battery life of over 5 hours with a fresh battery (almost 5 gaming + 1 hour mp3). So that is better then a phone and a laptop but less then a gameboy (depends heavily on battery class AND for the gba use of afterburner and gba SP on use of light, don't know about DS) and a mp3 player.

And if you got trouble in 2004 remembering to plug in your devices for reloading then the solution is simple. Don't buy them.

What next, fashion people complaing that the latest clothes still require you to put them on?

Go get a portable chess set. No batteries needed.

Easy anser, YES

[SmallFurryCreature]

Well depends if like in europe flights take also a lot of waiting on airports and you take public transport to and from the airport.

Luckily it comes with a removable battery and although it is a special model it should be easy enough to take 1 or even 2 spares with you. TADA problem solved.

On the other hand you could take the DS wich doesn't have the battery life either AND increased eyestrain for looking at a tiny screen.

Optimal solution? A book. Certain to work for the entire flight. Just hope you don't have to make an emergency stop in the bible belt. They are suspicious of those things down there.

Re:peh

[iamhassi]

blah blah DS vs PSP, but did anyone notice the guy started playing at 12:54AM and stopped at 8pm on a Sunday?

anyway speaking of the battery life who cares if it only lasts 5 hours? My cellphone, pocketpc and ipod doesn't last much longer than that so I just charge them nightly, just add the PSP to the list of devices that need nightly charging. What's the big deal?

Good you do that

[SmallFurryCreature]

You obviously don't have an afterburner or other light system. Or your a lying bastard.

Meanwhile I will be playing with a screen easily 4 times the size, that works without me having to twist to catch the light, with graphics from this century all at the cost of carrying a few spare batteries around and a recharger. Woopie!

Re:Good you do that

[buffer-overflowed]

SP lasts me about 20 hours with no lighting with no problem. And the screen works GREAT in daylight(the frontlighting actually makes it look worse). It's only if you confine yourself inside or try to play at night that you have problems with it, but that's what the light is for. You still get over 10 hours with the light on, I typically get around 12.

And the SP is also only $80. Versus $225 for the PSP value pack, which gets 3 hours of battery life playing these games with graphics from this century. Batteries for the SP or DS are $15, and you only need a screwdriver to replace them(due to product safety regs in at least one country about products marketed to children), versus $50 for the PSP. So, to get the same battery life as the $150 DS, you need to spend $275, and then you can only play puzzle games you could've just played on your SP. In order to play games from "this century" you're spending $325, $10 more per game(easily) and having to keep 3 batteries charged(so convienant) just to get to what to many of us is acceptable battery life.

Wow, what a fucking deal! I'm totally going to buy them for my kids. You know, the people who most often have the time to use this type of device.

And to anyone expecting Sony or a third party to fix this. Battery tech advances like molassis. You might be able to get 4 hours out of the thing with an expensive new battery sometime this year.

Re:PSP?

[cd0272]

Live under a rock ever played something called a alienware computer an xbox a ps2 a gamecube i would take any of these anyday instead of a psp or ds.

Re:Bias

[acxr is wasted]

IGN isn't really high on my list of sites that I don't automatically assume are wrong.

IGN != !automatically(assumed(wrong)); // Right?>

Really, I don't know how else to parse this. The statement is entirely passive language and impossible to interpret. I'm assuming you mean that IGN isn't credible due to bias, however IGN is the only gaming site I've seen actually bash titles released by their major advertisers. For example, the most recent Metal of Honor games, which EA plugged with massive annoying ads on IGN's homepage. IGN may be the advertising kings of the online gaming press, especially if you're not a subscriber, but their reporting is one feature of the site I've never been able to fault.

Sony is the last company to understate their products. If you could realistically expect 5 hours from the PSP, I would expect them to be talking about ten to fifteen hours, not two, one, and less like they have been.

Ehh, you're being awfully cynical about all this. It may be that Sony has, in fact, wised up by being honest over the battery life issue because they realize how integral that time is on a portable.

Anyway, I'm still waiting to hear about the moving parts issues. Battery life was the least of my worries. I feel very uncomfortable carrying something around in my pocket or bookbag that could be susceptible to shock damage, and I don't want to have to go and modify my laptop bag again to make a padded spot for one.

The easy solution to all this? The Nintendo DS! I absolutely love mine and would highly recommend it, even if you're waiting for the PSP. Not in lieu of a PSP, of course.

Sorry but that is utter rubbish!!!

[a_mere_kat]

Only 5 hours? That's utter B$!!!!! I live in Japan and I own one. Last night I played Everybody's Golf solidly from 10pm to 5am this morning. It was only when I checked the time that I realised I had been playing unplugged during this entire period ............and that I needed to be in work at 8am!! When I plugged into the wall the battery still had 50%......so plenty of legs left. IGN really do post some utter crap and this is a classic example............ I have been reading various blogs about short battery life in the PSP. Its only day two but so far I have had no problems with short battery life at all. I think the reason for this is that when I bought mine on Sunday I left the battery charging for about 14 hours without using the unit. I think a lot of those guys, in their mad urge to be 'the first', didn't charge their battery for long enough initially and are now reaping a somewhat bitter harvest. Thankfully for all the losers who did this Sony sell replacement batteries. All I can say is 'ha ha Mr Clever' now stop whinging, buy a new battery and learn some patience batty boy! Nooch!

Battery life? Cartriges? HELLOOOO...?

[Mulletproof]

I can take all the whining and complaining about the battery life as long as said whiners own up to one simple fact: You're comparing a 125mb (+/-) memory card to multi-gigabyte disk storage. Fucking apples and oranges are raining out of the sky like locus from Apocalypse here. Ok, so the battery is five minutes to five hours long, depending on who you believe. Fine. At least be willing to admit what you're getting for that trade off-- Shit you will NEVER see the DS capable of because of that lack of storage space. And if you don't mind too much, let's take a stroll down memory lane and remember how this was one of the major issues that dogged the N64 when pitted against the PS1.

Does that make the DS a bad platform? Maybe, maybe not*. But you better be at least willing to consider that of course your DS is going to have a longer battery life. It's a memory card based system that only needs to access 128mb of information. As compared to spinning around a physical disk to access 1.8gb worth of information. I would even go so far as to speculate a pasting much like the one Nintendo recieved there as well, but that's just me and irrelevant here.

Hey, I remember the N64 and Nintendo's phobia of circular game media. I'll take the trade-off and smile, thankyouverymuch.

*probably

Re:Battery life? Cartriges? HELLOOOO...?

[drendite]

So the DS will probably fail because it cannot play games with access to 1.8 gigs worth of information. Thanks for clearing it up for us.

Apples. Oranges.

[Mulletproof]

"I'd hate to purchase one just to find out that I have to do it Sony's way, or no way"

You mean like every other poratble gaming system in existence? Come on now. I mean, what other way would you be doing it with Nintendo? Sega? NeoGeo Pocket?

People seem to be overly fond of comparing apples to oranges this thread around...

Batteries ARE swappable.

[GFLPraxis]

You can change the batteries (I'm not sure if you need any tools, but it looks easily swappable from the pictures I've seen), but the big problem is that PSP batteries cost $50 apeice. Not the cheapest thing. Wouldn't stop all complaints ;)

The DS, though, has DOUBLE the PSP battery life. It's a huge difference.

Add to that the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none design (games can't be too CD-intensive or battery dies, it can't play much music unless you spend extra money on a more expensive memory stick, you can't play movies unless you buy them on a proprietary format which won't play on anything else), and higher price ($200 + memory stick [$30 minimum] + possibly extra battery + no games > $150 + free Metroid Prime Hunters demo)...

I'll take the DS.

Re:Bias

[aceat64]

*sigh*

No one can take a joke anymore on /.

Re:5 hours, good? my god.

[iapetus]

Well done. You can buy a spare SP battery. Now tell me something I don't know.

Or perhaps I'll tell you something that either you don't know or are choosing to ignore. The SP battery is not designed to be replaced by consumers on a regular basis. There are little giveaways, like the fact that the battery is sealed away behind a closed compartment that you need a special tool to open. That it's an ugly blue thing rather than fitting in to the GBA design and colour scheme. That Nintendo's own technical web site talks about the replacement battery being used when your existing battery dies, and gives instructions for disposing of the old one carefully. You know, little things like that.

The PSP, on the other hand, is designed to have the battery changed when it runs out. The battery
looks slick enough, can easily be changed, and the instructions for doing so don't tell you to dispose of your old one.

This isn't any sort of slight against the SP. With 12 hours or so of battery life, it's a reasonable expectation (though not always an accurate one) that you won't need more than a single full charge to get you from one power point to the next. With PSP, it's acknowledged as something that might be a problem for some people, so it's addressed by making it easy to change out for a spare battery, which brings the PSP's playing life on two batteries up to roughly the same as the GBA SP's playing life with its internal battery.

Oops, do I know more about handheld gaming than suits your weak and unpersuasive arguments? My apologies.

As for being a troll, if I am then I'm a troll who gets more use out of his GBA than most people and doesn't plan on owning a PSP until well after the second batch of hardware hits the US. I just don't like disinformation, that's all.

Have a nice day.

Re:Sony will no doubt release a better battery lat

[DisKurzion]

Please note that when the SP came out, it was the SAME price the GBA was released for, and the GBA dropped in price.

If the GBA was soo bad, why did *everyone* buy one?

God forbid a company respond to feedback and release an updated version of a product that was better than the original. If you're that concerned, don't buy it right away, and wait 9-18 months and see what happens.

Buyer freaking beware. Is it that hard of a concept?

Re:Some comments from the target market

[Ranma21]

As the original poster what I was trying to explain the view of the TARGET MARKET. The Sony PSP has "Home Market" printed all over it. SO, as a home market potential purchaser it appeals to me.

I believe the majority of Slashdotters believe that Nintendo and Sony make gaming gear aimed at them. Sorry guys, but they don't. They are tailored specifically for the home market, then sold overseas if they think there is a market.

Again, I really have no bias to any one manufacturer so I go on specs alone. To me it's a no-brainer. I have not seen any reviews listing "clear strengths" outside the battery life. Have I missed something?

Re:Sony will no doubt release a better battery lat

[DrMrLordX]

Everyone? I didn't buy one.

I must say, the one time I actually used a GBA(original), it still wasn't as uncomfortable to use as those stupis Xbox controllers. Guh.

Use adapters

[slapout]

I owned (and still own) some Atari Lynxs. I don't remember exactly what the batter life was (3-4 hours maybe?). But I do remember how I extended battery life: When playing in the car, I used the car adapter to power it. And when playing at home, a lot of times I used the AC adapter. These allowed me to save the batteries for when I needed them.

Re:Some comments from the target market

[Ranma21]

OK, fair enough. But consider this final impression.

Here in Japan, the TV commercials for the DS feature people playing games like clicking on the touchscreen to zap 2D charging bulls coming at you, AND believe it or not a game showing a young girl waving a DS around while watching a 2D visualisation of a human bowel - the goal being to direct the um, waste out the um, exit. I am serious. Fun for all the family.

The PSP ads however show Ridge Racer.

I'm a FPS and racing simulator fan. You can have the charging bulls, digestive games and um, GBA library.

Thanks for your views.

Re:Bias

[Ayaress]

Yeah, that first sentence is awkward, that's my fault. What I meant to say is that I have a fairly short list of sites who I trust for news on any particular topic. When it comes to hardware like this, it tends to be the places that intentional use things until they break, since they generally find realistic limits (although realistic limits sometimes end up being unrealistic scenarios like driving a pickup truck over your laptop). When I see news on those sites, I assume they're onto something. IGN is definitely not on that list. I don't automatically assume their wrong like I do with, say, GameDreams, but I won't quote them on anything.

In 6-12 Months this will be moot.

[Sir-Tez]

In 3 months or less, third party manufacturers will have released replacement batteries for the PSP with more battery life (and likely at a cheaper price than the Sony brand). Within a year Sony may release their own branded suped up battery pack.

The capabilities of the device far outweigh the bitching and moaning, and the main problem of the bitching and moaning is temporary.

In one to two years the model number of the PSP will increase as they run better production models down the line. So whether you're an early investor or bide your time, if you WANT a PSP... you'll get what you want. The battery issue will be solved.

Now let's start comparing games between the DS and PSP! Go, Go, Wipeout Pure!

Re:Yeah but...

[Borg_5x8]

I don't think 'sleep' worked out too well for Snow White, with her apple.