portable

Coming back from two back-to-back trials, the return to normalcy is almost a bizarre and unsettling experience. After being accustomed after over a month away from home, to working 100+ hours a week and sleeping for a few hours during the daytime, returning to a regular work week and sleeping at night is somewhat difficult. My sleep pattern is still a little out of whack, but I am historically a fairly nocturnal person. I think I almost kind of thrived on staying up all night and going to bed in the morning. It's certainly nice to be back home but I almost don't know what to do with all the extra free time I now find myself with; it's like I suddenly gained back 40-50 hours a week that I didn't have. Well, sleep is certainly high on the priority list. But when I returned home my honey V. had also bought me a few toys and games to help kill some time with. Specifically she bought me both the PSPgo and the PSP 3000
"Slim" so I could try them both and see which one I liked better. She also picked me up a copy of the newly released Halo 3: ODST game for the X360.

The PSPgo is a real neat little device--all the abilities of the previous PSPs but in a smaller package. The slide-down controls allow most of the frontal area to be a screen, and it's about the same footprint as an iPhone when closed. Because it doesn't include a UMD drive it's ultra light and quiet. And with its launch in early October the online Playstation Network Store saw a barrage of new digital downloads added to the roster.

The thing is, the older PSP 3000 does everything the PSPgo does, plus it has a UMD drive to play the older sold-in-stores PSP games. They both have wifi to connect to the internet and a basic web browser. They both use bluetooth to connect with other players. And they both have large, bright displays which look great with games and videos. The downside is the 3000 is larger, bulkier, and doesn't come with onboard memory -- you have to buy a Memory Stick card in order to download and store games on the PSP 3000 whereas the PSPgo comes with 16GB onboard. Although when you add up the cost of a PSP-3000 and a Sony 16 GB Memory Stick card it still comes out to less than the list price of a PSPgo. And when you compare the 3000 with its predecessors (the original 1000 and the "slim" 2000, the 3000 is significantly thinner and lighter.

I downloaded several demos on both PSPs such as the addictive Patapon 2, the speedy reflex-testing Wipeout Pulse, and the slash-tastic blood-splattering God of War: Chains of Olympus. I played the same games on both so I could really compare and contrast the two, get a sense of their strengths and weaknesses. And then to really put them through their pace, I bought a digital copy of the newly released Gran Turismo for PSP, which the Playstation network gratifyingly allowed me to install and play on both handhelds at the same time. Sweeet. Some of my coworkers also had GT on their PSPs so we got together several times after work and had some hilariously fun racing parties. Plus with the game's ability to share cars we were able to give each other the cool rides we had been accumulating on our own. I highly recommend this game for any racing fans, it's like having the old GT4 game from the PS2 in your hand wherever you go. Good times.

So what's the verdict? Which version of the PSP did I choose? It was not an easy decision, but ultimately I chose the PSP 3000. Mostly for the way the controls just felt better in my hands, on the PSP-go my fingers felt a little cramped when playing for anything more than a few minutes. I will have some disadvantage from the fact that the 3000 won't fit easily into the pocket like the go does, but when you factor in the UMD drive, the lower cost, and better controls I felt the 3000 had the best combination of features.

That's not all in the gadgets department... in anticipation of our upcoming vacation trip to SE Asia (Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia) we also decided to also pick up a netbook for convenient portable internet access, and an HD camcorder. V. really wanted a pink laptop so I ordered her a ASUS Eee PC 1005HA 10.1-Inch Pink Netbook. And then we got a Sony HDR-XR200V 120GB HDD High Definition Camcorder to document our travels. So you can look forward to plenty of photos and video clips from our adventures in Asia! We're getting pretty amped up about it, we leave for Bangkok in just three days!