PSP Go to get a UMD drive add-on ???

Now this just sounds ridiculous and it is a rumor. But here it is, logitech are apparently working on a UMD drive add-on for the PSP Go.. First I just have to comment.. BAH hahaha. If this is true, a PSP GO + UMD drive add-on will end up costing much more than a PSP-3000.. So what is the point? If you want a PSP with a UMD drive why would you buy a PSP Go then a add-on bulky logitech drive…

Here’s the sources comment on this:

source (singular) claims that Logitech is developing a UMD drive add-on for the PSP Go. The source has neither price nor release information, merely stating that the “only problem is that it’ll make the PSP a little bulky.” Logitech’s UK office told the outlet that it’s unaware of such a device and that it “may be something the US office is working on.” We’ve contacted both Sony and Logitech for more concrete information.

Source: CVG

Check it out, Neon of Team Typhoon has just posted video proof of a PSP Go on Firmware 6.10 running a Homebrew Enabled Enviroment (HEN) So they got ChickHEN to work on a PSP Go, maybe through the Save Game exploit FreePlay talked off?

Watch the video and you’ll see its legit, Neon’s PSP Go running Sega CD game Sonic via homebrew emulator picodrive.

But there is a big but with this, its not going to be released claim Team Typoon. Its just a proof of concept….

Source: YouTube

PSP Go eloader.

Remember FreePlays save game exploit hello world running on he PSP Go? Well FreePlay has recently posted on his blog that he has the NID resolver working and if he can get that working with the eLoader source we might all have an eLoader for the PSP Go. So that means the possibility to run user eboot’s. Emulators and homebrew games and applications. Custom Firmware and ISO support etc will not come from this. Which is a good thing. No piracy, but the use of homebrew only.

Quoting freeplay from his Youtube account.

Making progress. My NID resolver is working flawlessly now. If I can get it to work with the eLoader source, we’ll have an eLoader for the Go

Source:
FreePlay / Youtube

In this little test we pitted our PSP Go screen against our PSP-2000’s. We no longer have our PSP-3000, so we couldn’t put it up against our PSP Go. But personally, while the PSP-3000 has better colors against a PSP-2000, it has some ghosting and lag as the result of a lower latency screen.

So we know the PSP Go has a smaller screen, 3.8 inches versus the PSP-2000’s 4.3 inches. But while you notice the difference it also has a positive effect. Images on the screen look much sharper. When I go back to using my PSP-2000 it looks a little blurry after using the Go for a while. But then you like the fact its larger…So its a hard one.

However when I compare contrast, the PSP Go screen is a clear winner. Infact the best PSP screen I think to date. It has the nice color range of the PSP-3000 with slightly better contrast and no ghosting / screen lag!!

I’ve taken a few photos of the two screens side by side so you can clearly see that the PSP Go has better contrast and less screen bleed. Black is much blacker and white, much whiter. The last photo taken in the dark with the screens displaying a completely black image demonstrates this. As you can see the PSP-2000 show much more white light bleeding in the images Vs the PSP Go.

Now I’m no expert when it comes to PSP Screens, but you can see in person as well as from these pictures the better of the two LCD screens.

PSP Go screen vs PSP-2000 screen test 001

PSP Go screen vs PSP-2000 screen test 002

PSP Go screen vs PSP-2000 screen test 003

Oh this video is great! (Made by a DS fan ?) But it is funny, I won’t ruin it for you. But watch it till the end. I wonder if any new PSP Go owner actually did this? I know we felt like doing that at times with our UMD’s sitting here that we can’t use in our PSP Go.

Source: IGN

Today we tested to see if the PSP Go loads games faster off the internal 16GB storage. We tested a PSP Go game eboot load speed Vs a PSP-2004 TA-085 running a 8GB Sandisk Extreme II. Both systems have official firmware 6.10 installed. For this test we ran Grand Turismo in eboot form. Which was downloaded from PSN and installed on both systems.

Our little test only took a few minutes and it was clear to see that internal flash drive didn’t give the PSP Go any advantage what-so-ever. In fact it was about a one second slower than our PSP-2004. Could it have been because we used a faster Extreme II memory stick Pro duo? Maybe. Also since we don’t have a UMD version of GT, we couldn’t test it.

So that was an easy one. PSP Go = No advantage VS a normal PSP in flash memory loading speeds.

PSP Go 16GB flash benchmarked.

One of the big selling points of the PSP Go is its 16GB internal flash. And we realise many potential PSP Go owners want to see some real benchmarks of the new PSP Go unit. So here we go, some benchmarks / speed tests for you.

In this post we focus on the internal flash memory of the PSP Go. Its a 16GB Samsung flash chip. Non volatile flash, most of the large websites that have review the PSP..Infact all of them I think haven’t even bothered to mention the PSP Go’s 16GB flash read or write speeds. So here we did a few benchmarks of the 16GB flash speed. Here’s what we clocked.

Our flash was first formatted in the PSP Go (Only way you can do it) And we have 14GB free. In our test we used a Intel Core 2 i9000 Extreme @ 3.0 Ghz with 4GB of RAM running on Vista x64. And USB 2 of course.

OK down to the transfer speeds:

PSP Go 16GB flash Write speeds

PSP Go 16GB flash Write speeds

Sending a 1.5 GB Mp4 file to the PSP Go’s internal flash memory took just under 4 minutes And we had an average write speed of 5.8 mb/s. This isn’t bad at all, its no speed demon but at least its not like my old Nokia N95 8bg with write speeds under a megabyte per second. Transferring a huge music collection took a lifetime.

PSP Go 16GB flash read speeds

PSP Go 16GB flash read speeds

Now transferring files off the PSP Go to our PC we recorded a read speed of around 7.6mb/s. This was when we moved a 1.5 GB game eboot off our PSP Go to our PC hard drive. Again this speed is good, nothing amazing but at least its not cripplingly slow!

Now for you real tech heads out there we also did a HD Tune transfer speed benchmark for you: Results are below:

HD Tune PSP Go 16GB flash test

Here we see the PSP Go internal flash has an average transfer speed of 7.4 Mb/s and an access time of 1.2ms. Not bad at all.

Our conclusion: While the internal memory is not amazing fast its still quite zippy and that means you don’t have to wait hours to transfer your music collection to you PSP Go’s 16GB flash.

Rating: 7/10

Very acceptable speeds. Not the fastest, nor the slowest!

We got our PSP Go on the 2nd of October and straight away got onto the PSP Go rewards. Since I’m now in Europe this applies to us. (Sorry USA users don’t get the 3 free games). The first offer is if you get the PSP Go before the 10th (midnight) you get Grand Turismo free. So hurry there are only 5 days left for the GT offer. The second is if you upgrade from another UMD drive PSP you get 3 free games for a list of 18 to choose from. These are full games. Not demos.

Here’s the list of games to choice from:

Killzone Liberation

Medievil

Wipeout Pure

Buzz Brain Bender

Buzz Master Quiz

SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Fireteam Bravo

Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters

Everybody’s Golf

Resistance: Retribution

Syphon Filter Dark Mirror

Lemmings

LocoRoco

Patapon

Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow

Echochrome

Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice

Daxter

Were going to download, Resistance: Retribution,  Wipeout Pure and SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs: Fireteam Bravo. Ok so all you need to do is login first with your PSP Go to PSN download the special theme in PSP Go rewards. Make sure you register it.

Then disconnect your PSP Go. Boot up your PSP-1000, PSP-2000 or PSP-3000 and log-in PSN with the same account as used for the PSP Go. Then make sure you have a UMD game in the PSP UMD drive. Go to the PSP Go rewards in PSN and you should then see a prompt to sign up for the 3 free game offer. See the screen shoots below of this.

PSP GO rewards: Register your PSP with a UMD drive to get 3 free games.

Once you download the special PSP GT theme and activate it you will eventually get you code in your email inbox and you can download Grand Turismo for free. We got our code today, for GT and the 3 free games. So 4 games free with our PSP Go. Not bad right?

• It took 3 days for the redemption PSN PSP reward codes to arrive so you have to be patient its not instant!

The three major flaws of the PSP Go

So Sony’s new PSP Go is focused on portability and the PSP to have on the go since its smaller, right?. Plus its the forum factor, being that of a slider. Like a Nokia N95 for example. But there are 3 major flaws, no we aren’t talking about it not having a UMD drive. Were not going to bitch about that here like every other site does…. In our opinion these are the 3 major flaws the system has:

The non removable battery and battery life. Sony market it as a PSP: Go right, but after 3 hours more or less its the PSP Stop. And since it can’t have a spare battery as you can’t change the damn battery. So your PSP’ing on the Go is limited and therefore flawed. P.S Why is there no battery info in the PSP Go firmware ??? Hmmm Sony wants to hide the poor battery life?

No UMD to Digital Download option. Ok its fine that it doesn’t have a a UMD drive. We know this. But how about a method of loading a UMD serial number or something into PSN and then download that game to your internal flash memory?

Wireless speed. This is also a problem of all PSP systems. This PSP Go is all digital now and focused on the Playstation Network. Buy and download the games you want. Why for the love of god, Sony do we have only 802.11b wireless speeds? 11mps. At least opt for 802.11 b/g standard? 54mbs would be fine. Even better N draft speeds, if we were dreaming…. Downloading a 1GB game on 802.11 B is very slow. It will take around 3 and a half hours to download Gran Turismo via your PSP, its a 1010mb download. Better to connect up and use Media go to download at you computers 802.11g or n speeds. Much faster this way. But if only Sony added faster wifi to the PSP Go. This wouldn’t be an issue. Hell my mobile phone has Wireless G.

There you have it. The major flaws in our eyes. If you can get past this, then the Go is maybe the PSP for you. (That and if you have small child like hands – Kidding!)

Keep an eye out soon for our PSP Go review soon, this post we be part of it.

In this post we focus on the PSP Go’s new pause feature. Perhaps one of the best features on the PSP Go. Instead of exiting a game when you hit the home button (PSP Logo button) we’re presented with another option. Rather than just exit there is now the option to pause the game. In other words, create a save state. An exact save of where you are in the game.

PSP Go Save States. Resume a game when you want too.

It doesn’t matter if there is no save point. Just pause the game and the PSP Go saves the location were you are to the user 16GB internal storage. Later you can continue when you like. In a few hours or a few days. The save state stays or game pause there in till you use it and its then automatically removed. To select and continue where you left off, all you need to do is go to the game menu then Resume game. Your game pause or save state is there and with a thumbnail so its easy to spot.

Just what the above video, which clearly demonstrates this.