The Sony PlayStation Portable, as most of you may know, is a handheld gaming console with two 333 MHz MIPS32 R4000-based Processors, a Graphics Processing Unit with 2 MB onboard Video RAM running at 166 MHz. Main RAM is 32 MB, with 4 MB embedded DRAM.

Quite impressive specs, unfortunately a bit hobbled (depending where loyalties lie, this could also be called crippled) by reliance on optical disks, called “Universal Media Discs”, on which games, video (movies) and firmware updates are distributed. These are slower than the game cartridges used in the  Nintendo DS Lite, the Sony PSP’s main competitor.

Since this is about the latest iteration of the Sony PSP, I won’t go into the pros and cons of the Nintendo DS Lite versus the Sony PSP. I have played both handheld gaming consoles, and they each have  their good points.

The latest version of the Sony PlayStation Portable is called the PSP 3000. It adds built-in Skype with onboard microphone, and an improved screen which had several issues (see this article at CNET.COM).

The previous version, the PSP 2000, otherwise known as the PSP Slim, was 33% lighter and 19% thinner than the original PSP. The redesign also doubles the onboard RAM from 32 MB to 64 MB.