Power on

Main Screen Turn On

Upon powering on, you’ll be asked to input the time, date, and time zone. If there’s no UMD in the drive, then you’ll be brought to the main browser screen. The browser lists the four function categories (games, video, music, and photo) and settings for you to configure the system for network updates, USB connection, video, sound and photo settings, system settings, date & time, power save settings, security settings, and network settings for Wi-Fi.

The PSP browser is very easy to use; even children and/or illiterate folk would be able to navigate through the functions, as each is accompanied by a picture. In fact, the interface looks like it could be inspired by something from Apple.

Pop in a UMD and the PSP will automatically begin reading it and a splash screen will follow, advertising the software inserted. Loading times vary from title to title, but you can definitely hear when something is being loaded off the disc. A whir is clearly audible when the PSP is pulling something off the disc, sounding much like a MiniDisc player skipping through tracks.

A very handy feature is the sleep mode. Sliding the power switch while the machine is on doesn’t always mean that the machine turns off. A quick slide will enable sleep mode, but the cool thing is that upon wake, the PSP resumes whatever you were last doing without skipping a beat. Even if you were in the middle of your hitting your nitro in Ridge Racer before sliding the switch, the game resumes as if nothing happened. To truly turn off the PSP, the power switch must be held in position for two seconds. As for sleep mode’s drain on battery life, it’s minimal. Color us impressed.

Setting up the wireless connection is easy. When connecting to our wireless network in infrastructure mode, the PSP detected our router (and some others nearby) and prompted for a WEP key. Entering in our 128-bit key was a bit of a tedious chore, as instead of using an on-screen keyboard, Sony chose to display a number pad with letters on it, requiring us to type in letters as we would on a cell phone. The PSP supports only 802.11b and WEP, forcing those running pure G networks with WPA will have to reconfigure down to mixed mode in order to connect.