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Before the mighty Nintendo DS hit the shelves handheld gaming devices had been a hit and miss affair, yes there have been occasional gems like the Gameboy but more often than not the results are more likely to follow the Nokia N-Gage and the Sega Game Gear into the abyss of poorly thought out and poorly marketed gadgets we'd rather not have. Thankfully Sony have seen about it that the Nintendo DS shouldn't have the handheld console market all to itself, and in 2004 they launched the Sony Playstation Portable.

What's in the box?
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Well most importantly you get the PSP itself, two hundred and sixty grams of finest black plastic and moulded buttons with a TFT screen neatly positioned in the middle. Of course a battery to keep the unit running for up to fourteen hours continuously and an AC adaptor to recharge it when not in use are next, while depending on which package you have purchased there may also be an AC power cord to save the battery if the unit is being used near a power outlet. A pair of in-ear headphones complete with attached remote control ensure those around are not disturbed by noise while you are enjoying any of the features and a 32MB memory stick means game saves, movie preferences, internet settings and MP3`s can be kept for future reference. A soft pouch and wrist strap complete the accessories. Again depending on the particular package purchased a film or game may be included in UMD format, in all packages a demo disk is supplied to show the full capabilities of the PSP. Finally a selection of leaflets and flyers detail warranty details and the like while the instruction manual weighs in at a hefty one hundred and forty pages.

Setup
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Setting up the PSP is simply a matter of popping the battery into the unit and charging it with the supplied AC adaptor, this can take up to four hours to complete the first time and is signified by an orange charging light on the unit, this light extinguishes when the battery is fully charged. Once charged the unit can be switched on whereupon a number of options need to be set including language, time and date and even a nickname for the unit if so desired. Once these options are entered the unit is ready to go, simply plugging in the earphones or inserting a UMD game or movie into the UMD drive at the rear of the unit or listening to some saved MP3 music files or viewing pictures on the memory stick. In addition the PSP can be used to browse the internet once a few settings are selected in infrastructure mode.

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