PSP - The revival
So lately I've been going to the gym nearly every day of the week in an effort to become healthy. While I'm there I sometimes get tired of TV with captions that usually have the news or the latest soap drama playing.
I'm not one for news/drama when I'm trying to nut out 30mins+ cardio session. So....I've dusted off my PSP (Fat ver.1000) and decided to get it back up it's former glory. It's been unused for a year now and with new solid news of a version 2 of the PSP coming out anytime soon I'll see how much longer I can make it last.
My PSP has been opened several times, out of curiosity and for fixes resulting from my curiosity. I've been successful in taking it appart completely and putting it back together again only to not place the screen back properly and thus cracking it.
I replaced the LCD screen back then with a cheap replacement screen only to find the seller had sold me one with a blotchy blue colour for black. Not only that but it had a light spot that looked like a thumb print in the center of it. Only noticeable in either Black or White images. Like every other PSP made it has at least 2 dead pixels that I've lived with.
The analog nub has started to play up slightly getting stuck when in the left most direction. I've read somewhere that taking it apart and cleaning the contacts can sometimes help this....that and ensuring that it is tightly screwed to the PSP faceplate.
The biggest issue about the PSP is that the UMD drives are as slow as hell! It was because of this reason I was forced to play my backed up games from memory stick/card. To do this required installing a hacked firmware on the PSP. I was lucky and managed to get a very very very early model that allowed the hack from day one that I bought it.
I had to upgrade my memory stick to 2gb being burned on ebay in the process and this lasted my portable gaming needs for about a year and a bit....it's nearly 2009 and 2gb just won't cut it when memory cards are so cheap. The game God of War alone is 1.5gb uncompressed with full movies and audio tracks. So my next need will be a larger memory card for my collection of games, new and old.
Lastly in terms of wear and tear the PSP has lasted quite a long time all things concerned. The back of the psp still looks like new but the shiny front faceplate is another story. I'd like to say I've taken good care of the faceplate but it's been dropped once and no ammount of TLC can protect the screen area from super light scratches.
My solution for all of these is this :
Sharp PSP LCD Screen : $50
Original Sony PSP Faceplate : $26
PhotoFast Dual Slot SD Micro to MS Pro Duo Adapter : $23
At a price of under $150 it beats getting a slim in my view....plus I already have a 4GB Micro SDHC card to add to the 8GB giving me a total of 12GB for game/vids/music storage.
I'm not one for news/drama when I'm trying to nut out 30mins+ cardio session. So....I've dusted off my PSP (Fat ver.1000) and decided to get it back up it's former glory. It's been unused for a year now and with new solid news of a version 2 of the PSP coming out anytime soon I'll see how much longer I can make it last.
My PSP has been opened several times, out of curiosity and for fixes resulting from my curiosity. I've been successful in taking it appart completely and putting it back together again only to not place the screen back properly and thus cracking it.
I replaced the LCD screen back then with a cheap replacement screen only to find the seller had sold me one with a blotchy blue colour for black. Not only that but it had a light spot that looked like a thumb print in the center of it. Only noticeable in either Black or White images. Like every other PSP made it has at least 2 dead pixels that I've lived with.
The analog nub has started to play up slightly getting stuck when in the left most direction. I've read somewhere that taking it apart and cleaning the contacts can sometimes help this....that and ensuring that it is tightly screwed to the PSP faceplate.
The biggest issue about the PSP is that the UMD drives are as slow as hell! It was because of this reason I was forced to play my backed up games from memory stick/card. To do this required installing a hacked firmware on the PSP. I was lucky and managed to get a very very very early model that allowed the hack from day one that I bought it.
I had to upgrade my memory stick to 2gb being burned on ebay in the process and this lasted my portable gaming needs for about a year and a bit....it's nearly 2009 and 2gb just won't cut it when memory cards are so cheap. The game God of War alone is 1.5gb uncompressed with full movies and audio tracks. So my next need will be a larger memory card for my collection of games, new and old.
Lastly in terms of wear and tear the PSP has lasted quite a long time all things concerned. The back of the psp still looks like new but the shiny front faceplate is another story. I'd like to say I've taken good care of the faceplate but it's been dropped once and no ammount of TLC can protect the screen area from super light scratches.
My solution for all of these is this :
Sharp PSP LCD Screen : $50
Original Sony PSP Faceplate : $26
PhotoFast Dual Slot SD Micro to MS Pro Duo Adapter : $23
At a price of under $150 it beats getting a slim in my view....plus I already have a 4GB Micro SDHC card to add to the 8GB giving me a total of 12GB for game/vids/music storage.
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