PSP Go in our hands

Sony's new PlayStation Portable (PSP) grabs hold of the download media-sharing era with both hands. Though lacking some features that have made the latest Apple iPod Touch and iPhone so compelling, PSP Go excites on its own terms.

Gamers are justifiably distracted by the thousands of diverse apps available for iPhone. But when it comes to games even the best of them cannot compare to a portable PlayStation firing on all cylinders. If it's the ‘PlayStation experience' you want on the move, guess what it's still only PSP that's going to deliver that for you.

The smaller, more compact PSP is dubbed "Go" to remind us that this is a device intended to carry with you and receive entertainment from out of thin air. You can fit this one in your pocket, or slip it in your shoulder bag and hardly notice the weight. PSP Go connects wirelessly to the Internet with ease, as could previous iterations of the hardware, but there have also been welcome improvements to storage capacity and fidelity of playback. The only downside is the reduced screen size, down from 4.3" to 3.78", but what's a fraction of an inch between friends?

PSP Go has 16GB of inbuilt memory, which is far better than the puny 2GB Memory Stick boxed with some PSP 3000 bundles. The increased space allows for mostly care-free handling of music and video files, but more importantly download games, via Sony's answer to iTunes ‘Media Go' and the PlayStation Store. However with recent PSP games hovering around the 800MB-1GB range, avid gamers could be out of space sooner than they'd wish.

At £225 for PSP Go this puts it in the same ballpark as a 32GB iPod Touch that has recently dropped to £229. Although we think this is unlikely, if your primary interest in PSP Go is as a media player for movies and music, iPod Touch is better value. Also bearing in mind that iTunes offers a richer service than PlayStation Store right now.

Going one stage further down this road, PSP Go doesn't offer GPS so no Google Map / Sat Nav software is possible. Sony's gadget doesn't have an accelerometer, and that means no light sabre for all you Star Wars fans. Finally, no touch screen - you're ‘limited' to the familiar array of PlayStation buttons plus tiny analogue stick. These are presented on a panel that slides away when not in use, similar to those mobile phones with a miniature keyboard.

We feel it's worth mentioning that your PSP 3000, or even old school original 2005 model, can be upgraded to 16GB for around £50. All you need is a new Memory Stick Duo. You'll also still have use of your UMD collection (such as it is) - all those miniature discs that Sony tried and failed to establish as a future format. PSP Go has no UMD drive, and Sony is yet to announce a service that lets you transfer UMD contents onto a PC hard drive or direct to PSP Go.

In the end we feel the desire to own PSP Go as apposed to PSP 3000 is about style and portability. Both consoles play the latest PSP games, which by the way have greatly improved this past few years - check out Motorstorm, Gran Turismo and this week's Beaterator. The same firmware applies to all PSP models, allowing for RSS videos from Crackle, Internet Radio from SHOUTcast, Skype and older functions such as Location Free (access to media on compatible devices via Wi-Fi) and Remote Play (streaming media stored on your PlayStation 3 locally or via Wi-Fi). Only Bluetooth is new to PSP Go, an additional file-sharing convenience.

If you want to be frugal about this, PSP 3000 is currently almost £100 cheaper than PSP Go. Add the 16GB Memory Stick and you're still saving £45. But the voice of reason seldom penetrates the skull of persons with a taste for new gadgets. And as gadgets go, PSP Go certainly attracts admiring attention from the have-nots.

PSP Go is undoubtedly the way forward for Sony's versatile handy console, the games are superb, but competition is much tighter out there than it was when PSP originally launched in 2005. Back then the unlikely hero emerged as Nintendo DS. There's nothing unlikely about the iPod success story.