I discovered this beautiful site over here yesterday evening, and somehow it reaffirms my conclusion that Sony is indeed marketing the Playstation Portable not only as a console handheld, but also as a fashion icon, a kind of lifestyle akin to Apple’s iPod franchise. Frankly speaking in my opinion, the Sony PSP is actually the second gizmo created out of this world that’s made so perfectly, in terms of looks and design. The first one been Apple’s very own iPod, of course. For portable gadgets, this two sleek devices stays on top of my most-cool looking gadgets list. And to further prove my statement, here are some pictures for you guys and gals to ogle and enjoy, before you buy your Sony PSP that is. *grins*

Can we say style mixed with usability? This cool black piece of sleek gizmo does games, audio and video. A great piece of hybrid device I say, a great example of the 21st Century Walkman, as quoted before from Ken Kutaragi of SCEI. Honestly I can say I’m one happy owner of the Sony PSP, my set has no dead pixels or any problems. And I’m enjoying myself with Lumines, and using it as a portable music player it’s great, with up to 10 hours of music playback based on a fully-charged battery. Though IMO for general use the battery life is rather short, touting 4 ~ 6 hours of gameplay time, and 4 ~ 5 hours of video playback time (depends on whether source is UMD or Memorystick) but since Sony has already announced a better battery technology which is slated for release in Fall this year (for their range of products like VAIO, Clie, PSP, Digicams and DVs etc) I think this should not be an imminent problem for the Sony PSP, since it will be solved and further improved in the near future.

And with recent word about the Sony PSP’s hardware been underclocked, as you can see from this article here, personally I think that it’s a rather fair deal and logical fact that Sony themselves made a restriction in the software dev libraries for the games developers themselves, rather than shortchanging us and giving us a more inferior hardware in the PSP itself. And since on paper, the hardware specs of the Sony PSP is actually indeed more powerful than the Sony PS2 itself, we can expect to see more graphical prowess from the PSP hardware itself in future with upcoming titles, once the battery issue is resolved. There has also been speculation that the hardware performance cap is in the PSP firmware itself, and not in the games. This is not true, as with the recent GDC event (Games Developer Conference), it’s been further reaffirmed by several games developers that the cap is in the dev libraries itself, and not in the firmware. So as long as Sony doesn’t lift the restriction, the game developers are stuck with the current restriction in making their games with the current hardware limitation for the PSP, which is 50 percent lower. (222Mhz for CPU, 111Mhz for GPU & Bus) So tough luck for the hackers and mod-scene people, tempering with the firmware ain’t gonna help or lift the restriction, we can only wait. (Can we say patience is a virtue?)

Anyway, enough of the hardware geek talk, let’s go on to the accessories for the Sony PSP. Since this is such an expensive piece of sleek device, obviously we need some cool accessories to complement it. And here I’m going to share with you what I’m currently using with my Sony PSP.

This is the Hori portable pouch-case, from Hori Japan. Can be found here locally in game shops, so shouldn’t be a hard find. Costs around 24 ~ 26 bucks. I’m currently using this to protect my PSP while I’m outdoors with it, and it can hold 2 Memorystick Duos with it with ample fit for the Sony PSP so no worries there. Gonna use this until I get my Porter pouch. *grins*

I have always believed that a good pair of earphones is essential for any form of portable music needs. And this statement stays the same for the Sony PSP. The bundled earphones that came with the value pack just doesn’t cut it for music and movies, but enough for gaming. So I got this pair of in-canal earphones sometime ago from Sony Gallery at Wisma, cost about 89 bucks. A rather good investment I say, this Sony MDR-EX81SL in-canal earphones has a rather punchy bass, with clear sound in terms of clarity. And this series is supposed to be an improvement over the NUDE EX71s, because of an additional clip-on support for the ears. In the past the previous series tend to drop out easily when you’re running or rushing off to somewhere else with the earphones on, even though you have quite a good fit with the earbuds. No more of those problems, the EX81s have fixed this. Jimmy got this same pair of in-canal earphones last week from SLS too, he need a pair of good earphones to go with his Sony PSP and since he was looking for one, I recommended him this. He’s rather satisfied with his purchase I think, saw him gleefully smiling when he put on those earphones to try out with his PSP, and he was telling me how great the bass is. Couldn’t agree more, and actually Val was quite surprised when I told him the EX81s are available now, since he thought that his EX71s were the latest in production for the NUDE EX series. The white ones goes well with the Sony PSP as well as the Apple iPod or iPod Mini, so don’t hesitate if you’re looking for a good pair of earphones to go with your portable music player. And this pair of in-canal earphones tends to block out and isolate noise from your surroundings, as long as you have good fit. So you actually don’t need a high volume from your source to drive the earphones, I estimate you probably need only 30 to 40 percent of the full volume to indulge in your music with this pair of in-canal earphones. For those who have a higher budget, check out Performance Audio at SLS on the 2nd Floor, and try the Etymotic’s ER6i or Shures E3C. These in-canal earphones are better in specs and goes well with Apple iPod as well as the Sony PSP. But they also come with a more hefty pricetag, so expect to pay 200 ~ 300 bucks for these babies. I’m quite interested to get the Shures E3C but we will talk about that when I get my portable DAP in future.

Haha, no this is not a parody, it’s yet another fashion statement, as shown by the absolute beautiful, Paris Hilton. As you can see she brings her PSP out (and her dog) wherever she goes, which tells you something about the Sony PSP, doesn’t it? And with recent word that Jennifer Lopez is making a PSP pouch franchise under her name, it’s of no surprise that this very cool piece of sleek gadget is slowly making a hustle out with celebrities. Lemme repeat, can we say style with usability? (^ ^)

Ok I’m signing out, gonna go out and get my Electroplankton tomorrow at Gamescore. Did some decent mugging of the books today, whole straight 4 hours of mugging! Time to go out and chill tomorrow. Oyasumi minna!