A Review of the Sony PSPgo

The Sony PSPgo is a great little handheld gaming system. Unfortunately, it's hampered by a high price tag, more expensive downloadable games, and proprietary cords and memory cards. It's just hard to tell who the audience is on this one. With a system that's a bit cramped for bigger hands, it's not quite ideal for adult gamers, but the price makes it an iffy choice for kids. It's certainly a quality system, but it's one that has a bit of an identity crisis.

The PSPgo is a small, lightweight powerhouse of a game system. Gorgeous graphics, WIFi, 16MB of on-board memory with an additional memory stick slot, and Bluetooth capability give this appeal to hardcore as well as casual games. In fact, the system is so small and so feature-rich that you may find yourself trying to figure out how to hold it without pressing any of the buttons.

The screen slides up to reveal navigation buttons and a mini navigational stick. The layout keeps the size of the system small, but the buttons are somewhat cramped and caused me some discomfort while playing action-based games. Graduates of other gaming systems will miss the ease of the touch screen experience, especially in navigating the menu system. That said, Sony gaming aficionados will find the navigation system familiar and easy to use.

One of the highlights of the PSPgo also turns out to be one of the biggest drawbacks. The game system relies entirely on digital game downloads. It is not compatible with previous PSP game systems and does not use Sony Universal Media Discs (UMDs). If you're someone who is forever misplacing cartridges and discs, this is most definitely a bonus. On the other hand, the PSPgo does not support background downloads (as the PS3 does), so waiting for a large game to download is tedious at best. In addition, digital games tend to be costlier as they don't go on sale, you can't buy them used, and you can't sell back your own used copy. On a practical note for parents, you won't have any games to wrap up for gifts and, you can imagine a Christmas morning (or post birthday-party lull) spent downloading new games rather than actually playing them.

Graduates of other gaming systems will find at least one thing to really celebrate - the beautiful graphics we've come to expect from Sony products. Forget pixelated characters wandering around the screen and enjoy a more realistic and smooth gaming experience. Sure, the screen is small, but you can still watch a full-length feature film on the PSPgo, which is a boon for those long family car-rides.

While on the subject of long car rides, the battery life on the PSPgo is a solid one. I didn't closely monitor it, but was able to watch an entire movie and spend another hour or two playing games without even thinking about recharging. It's not going to blow you away, but it is one less thing to worry about. The flaw? Sony's proprietary charger that doubles as a USB cord. It's not a standard USB cable and the USB portion can't be used to charge the device - it needs to be plugged into an outlet to charge. Also proprietary is the Memory Stick Micro (M2) you'll need to add on to the storage space.