PSP: What other uses than gaming?

[johnrevill]

I'm torn between getting myself a PSP or a DS Lite. One that is going in the PSP favour is the fact that it offers a lot more non-gaming functionality than the DS Lite.

Apart from viewing UMD films what else does everyone use them for? I did see a guy in the airport last week watching some TV show on his (presumably trasnsferred onto a memory stick). Any other cunning uses??

cheers,
John

[Harsin]

I haven't played a game for ages and mostly use mine for portable forum reading.

[johnrevill]

Cool - do you use it at home or is that using wi-fi hotspots?

I've got a wi-fi network at home - could I easily connect it to that then?

[Harsin]

At home connecting to a wireless router, use for some reading in bed when I'm between novels, be aware though that it can be slooooooow.

If you've got an existing network should be a piece of cake.

[johnrevill]

If you've got an existing network should be a piece of cake.

Some interesting ideas there. Is the slowness you refer to related to the speed at whcih it connects wirelessly or the actual browser is slow at rendering pages?


Also, with regards to getting TV shows on the PSP. How easy is it to transfer files off a PC onto the PSP? Presumably they need converting first...

[Harsin]

I assume that it's the rendering as AFAIK the actual wireless connection is faster than my actual internet connection (it does start to throw up memory errors if you browse for a decent while and I have to reboot to get rid of them).

[Mr Majestik]

There is a DS web browser coming out soon...

[Dan]

I haven't played a game for ages and mostly use mine for portable forum reading.

:dork:

[johnrevill]

Sounds pretty ropey then if you have to reboot it..!

The non gaming features were swaying me to the PSP but if that aspect is not great then I'd rather stick to the games and get a DS lite I think....

[earl_roberts2002]

I use mine for storing photos and transferring them to friends wirelessly, viewing videos [both converted and ones recorded into mp4 straight off the mobile] watching umds, playing mp3's, browsing the internet occassionly AND playing games. I'm pretty happy with it ;)

[Grandmaster]

I use mine as a media player on flights. I use the program called PMPmod AVC, which allows for full resolution 480x272 video playback using the h.264 codec meaning you can fit two hours of excellent quality video on a 512mb stick (though I have a 4gb one now :D). Because it's using the AVC decoder chip, you easily get 5-6 hours of usage from one battery charge.

You will need a 1.5 firmware PSP to run this program.

Not sure how much longer I'll be using it as a media player though as I've just bought a Dell XPS M1210 ultra-portable laptop :) However, PMPmod AVC is definitely a great reason to own the machine.

[Ono]

Must say that mine is gathering dust again :(

If you want one of these for browsing I would suggest waiting for the UK DS Lite browser release (an Opera variant) . The stylus is going to make a huge difference IMHO.