This review is from: PlayStation Vita (Wi-Fi only) (Console)
£200 device with games priced at £40 – sounds crazy in today’s world where, like it or not, gaming is moving toward a more casual market. And in this economy too, Sony have taken quite the gamble. I decided to take the risk with the Playstation Vita (Wi-Fi only model though, what with the economy and all) and am happy to say i believe i made the right decision. I hope my review can help you make the right one as well…
= HARDWARE = Firstly the battery life surprised me, consdering the rumors of horrific life, and the doubts i had after reading the Vita’s spec sheet, the battery life is good consdering the amount of pressure the system is under, especially when gaming. With brightness at 50% and with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled, the Vita lasted for around 4 hours when gaming and messing around with it. A full on gaming marathon of the most demanding game currently available (Uncharted Golden Abyss) lasted for a respectable 3 hours and 30 minutes – enough to cover most journeys without the need for a recharge. Pumping up the screen brightness, and disabling Bluetooth and Wi-Fi will no doubt have a big impact on the battery life. Recharging the battery from 0% to 100% takes 2 hours and 30 minutes, this is mainly to do with the size of the battery itself.
The PS Vita is armed with a quad-core processor and GPU – both of which are needed to drive it’s gorgeous 5″ Super AMOLED touchscreen which has a resolution of 960 x 544. It’s a great display, with accurate color reproduction, good viewing angles, vibrant colours and deep blacks which sometimes blur the line between screen and bezel. It’s not as sharp as some of the mobile phone displays out there but it has a respectable 220ppi, the iPhone Retina display is 326ppi and the Galaxy Nexus’ 316ppi. It’s not a big deal however and cannot take away from how gorgeous the screen looks when playing games, its truly amazing.
Along with the familiar Playstation buttons and analog stick is a newcomer – the second analog stick. The Vita is the closest thing to a home console like experience while on the move, something which no other handheld device has accomplished. There are no more genre restrictions, shooters and adventure games will work just as well on the Vita now that there are two analog sticks available for controlling. Like the analog sticks the buttons are good quality too and have a nice and responsive clicky feel to them. The shoulder buttons are smooth and the D-Pad is nice and accurate. Coupled with how comfortable the Vita is to hold, how solid and high quality it feels due to its weight, playing games on this thing is a treat.
The rear touch pad is new and works well enough, its the same size as the screen and allows for controlling whilst keeping your main fingers free. The two built in cameras in the front and back are of average quality, both capturing images at VGA 640×480 resolution as well as recording video. The stereo speakers and microphone are surprisingly good quality. The Vita also has built in 3 axis gyorscope, accelerometer, electronic compass, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and maybe even 3G. It’s a beast of a machine and although it’s gonna be a tight fit in your jean pocket, it’s still a fairly light and portable handheld device. Put simply, the PS Vita gets it all right on the hardware front packing some impressive tech into a small-ish and affordable device.
= SOFTWARE = The Vita has a touchscreen operating system similar to iOS and Android, the PS3’s XMB interface is no more. The home screen is made up of bubble icons and navigation is fairly simple. The whole OS is designed for touchscreen use, the physical buttons take a backseat which is fine but you also miss out on things like skipping through music with the shoulder buttons and scrolling through a website with the analog stick. The OS has a touchscreen keyboard which is pretty standard, but due to how wide the Vita’s screen is you will need to stretch your fingers a bit to get to the middle letters, it’s not ideal for typing super quick.
Like everything nowadays the Vita has apps with more available to download from the PSN Store. The main ones which come preinstalled are Party, Group Messaging, and Friends. Party gives you cross-game voice and text chat functionality for the first time on PlayStation Network for up to 8 players. It also links you to their game. Group Messaging is a 4 person chat app which allows you to send photos. Friends is a simple friends list for viewing profiles, trophy information and your PSN friends’ own friends lists. The Music and Video player apps are simple but only support basic formats like MP3, MP4 and WAV while the video player only accepts MP4 files. Social apps for things like…
This review is from: PlayStation Vita (Wi-Fi only) (Console)
Firstly, I do like my Vita so don’t get me wrong but I am annoyed that it’s failed to deliver everything that was promised…
I quote from the read up here ” wireless access to the PlayStation Store. Here, via Vita’s improved Wi-Fi capabilities, owners can download new game add-ons, movies, comics and PS One classics ported over for handheld play”. Well actually no. PSone classics have not been ported over to Vita as promised. A big bugbear of mine as I have many classic games on digital!
Also I find I mildly annoying that Japanes users have a system where they can (for a small fee) transfer their old PSP games into digital copies for use with their new Vita. Here in the rest of the world, we’re told we will either have to pay out again for a digital version of the game (which can be as much as $29.99) or our UMDs will be useless unless we hang onto our old PSP systems. Just seems a little unfair there to me.
The console itself however is nice looking, if a little bulky. Feels sturdy and works well. There are only a limited number of games available at the moment though which is one reason I find the lack of compatibility as advertised a problem as there are no games made specifically for the Vita that I like ( I’m a JRPG kinda girl lol )
I hope against hope that things will improve as it has only been a little over a month since release. I honestly think however that they should stop advertising the backwards compatibility with PSone classics as it is simply just not true, you can’t do that on your Vita and it’s wrong to suggest you can.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This review is from: PlayStation Vita (Wi-Fi only) (Console)
The Vita itself is great, the display is awesomely clear and sharp, the dual analogue sticks work great and the games do look amazing considering its a handheld, but it has one MAJOR downfall. Games. I bought a Vita about a week after launch along with a copy of the Uncharted: Golden Abyss, but even choosing that was a struggle, as there were simply hardly any games worth getting at launch.
2 months later and the only thing to grace my Vita has been dust. There honestly doesn’t seem to be a large array of games on the horizon, and those that seem to entice me at all are set for 2013. The only game I actually played much of was Persona 3 Portable (a PSP game if you didn’t know) which I already own a version of for the PS2! I basically bought a £200 paper weight, not to mention the cost of a memory card that DOESN’T even come with the console, and brand new game to play at launch, bringing the grand total just shy of £260.
So to sum up, I am in no way ragging on the Vita, its a solid console with slick graphics, but please take my advice and wait for them to at least bring in the backwards compatabilty, and DO YOUR RESEARCH! Check if there are games out that you actually want to buy now and in the future. I’ll hold my hand up and admit I made a foolish mistake by impulse buying without checking up on it first. Don’t make the same mistake as me.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
The Best Handheld Gaming Device Ever Made, Period,
£200 device with games priced at £40 – sounds crazy in today’s world where, like it or not, gaming
is moving toward a more casual market. And in this economy too, Sony have taken quite the gamble. I
decided to take the risk with the Playstation Vita (Wi-Fi only model though, what with the economy and
all) and am happy to say i believe i made the right decision. I hope my review can help you make
the right one as well…
= HARDWARE =
Firstly the battery life surprised me, consdering the rumors of horrific life, and the doubts i had after
reading the Vita’s spec sheet, the battery life is good consdering the amount of pressure the system is
under, especially when gaming. With brightness at 50% and with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled, the Vita
lasted for around 4 hours when gaming and messing around with it. A full on gaming marathon of the most
demanding game currently available (Uncharted Golden Abyss) lasted for a respectable 3 hours and 30
minutes – enough to cover most journeys without the need for a recharge. Pumping up the screen brightness,
and disabling Bluetooth and Wi-Fi will no doubt have a big impact on the battery life. Recharging the battery
from 0% to 100% takes 2 hours and 30 minutes, this is mainly to do with the size of the battery itself.
The PS Vita is armed with a quad-core processor and GPU – both of which are needed to drive it’s gorgeous
5″ Super AMOLED touchscreen which has a resolution of 960 x 544. It’s a great display, with accurate color
reproduction, good viewing angles, vibrant colours and deep blacks which sometimes blur the line between
screen and bezel. It’s not as sharp as some of the mobile phone displays out there but it has a respectable
220ppi, the iPhone Retina display is 326ppi and the Galaxy Nexus’ 316ppi. It’s not a big deal however and
cannot take away from how gorgeous the screen looks when playing games, its truly amazing.
Along with the familiar Playstation buttons and analog stick is a newcomer – the second analog stick.
The Vita is the closest thing to a home console like experience while on the move, something which no other
handheld device has accomplished. There are no more genre restrictions, shooters and adventure games will
work just as well on the Vita now that there are two analog sticks available for controlling. Like the
analog sticks the buttons are good quality too and have a nice and responsive clicky feel to them. The
shoulder buttons are smooth and the D-Pad is nice and accurate. Coupled with how comfortable the Vita is
to hold, how solid and high quality it feels due to its weight, playing games on this thing is a treat.
The rear touch pad is new and works well enough, its the same size as the screen and allows for controlling
whilst keeping your main fingers free. The two built in cameras in the front and back are of average
quality, both capturing images at VGA 640×480 resolution as well as recording video. The stereo speakers and
microphone are surprisingly good quality. The Vita also has built in 3 axis gyorscope, accelerometer, electronic
compass, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and maybe even 3G. It’s a beast of a machine and although it’s gonna be a tight
fit in your jean pocket, it’s still a fairly light and portable handheld device. Put simply, the PS Vita gets
it all right on the hardware front packing some impressive tech into a small-ish and affordable device.
= SOFTWARE =
The Vita has a touchscreen operating system similar to iOS and Android, the PS3’s XMB interface is no more.
The home screen is made up of bubble icons and navigation is fairly simple. The whole OS is designed for
touchscreen use, the physical buttons take a backseat which is fine but you also miss out on things like
skipping through music with the shoulder buttons and scrolling through a website with the analog stick.
The OS has a touchscreen keyboard which is pretty standard, but due to how wide the Vita’s screen is you
will need to stretch your fingers a bit to get to the middle letters, it’s not ideal for typing super quick.
Like everything nowadays the Vita has apps with more available to download from the PSN Store. The main ones
which come preinstalled are Party, Group Messaging, and Friends. Party gives you cross-game voice and text
chat functionality for the first time on PlayStation Network for up to 8 players. It also links you to their
game. Group Messaging is a 4 person chat app which allows you to send photos. Friends is a simple friends list
for viewing profiles, trophy information and your PSN friends’ own friends lists. The Music and Video player
apps are simple but only support basic formats like MP3, MP4 and WAV while the video player only accepts MP4
files. Social apps for things like…
Read more
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|Nice but not quite as advertised!,
Firstly, I do like my Vita so don’t get me wrong but I am annoyed that it’s failed to deliver everything that was promised…
I quote from the read up here ” wireless access to the PlayStation Store. Here, via Vita’s improved Wi-Fi capabilities, owners can download new game add-ons, movies, comics and PS One classics ported over for handheld play”. Well actually no. PSone classics have not been ported over to Vita as promised. A big bugbear of mine as I have many classic games on digital!
Also I find I mildly annoying that Japanes users have a system where they can (for a small fee) transfer their old PSP games into digital copies for use with their new Vita. Here in the rest of the world, we’re told we will either have to pay out again for a digital version of the game (which can be as much as $29.99) or our UMDs will be useless unless we hang onto our old PSP systems. Just seems a little unfair there to me.
The console itself however is nice looking, if a little bulky. Feels sturdy and works well. There are only a limited number of games available at the moment though which is one reason I find the lack of compatibility as advertised a problem as there are no games made specifically for the Vita that I like ( I’m a JRPG kinda girl lol )
I hope against hope that things will improve as it has only been a little over a month since release. I honestly think however that they should stop advertising the backwards compatibility with PSone classics as it is simply just not true, you can’t do that on your Vita and it’s wrong to suggest you can.
Was this review helpful to you?
|Wait for more games and PS1/PS2 backwards compatabilty,
The Vita itself is great, the display is awesomely clear and sharp, the dual analogue sticks work great and the games do look amazing considering its a handheld, but it has one MAJOR downfall. Games. I bought a Vita about a week after launch along with a copy of the Uncharted: Golden Abyss, but even choosing that was a struggle, as there were simply hardly any games worth getting at launch.
2 months later and the only thing to grace my Vita has been dust. There honestly doesn’t seem to be a large array of games on the horizon, and those that seem to entice me at all are set for 2013. The only game I actually played much of was Persona 3 Portable (a PSP game if you didn’t know) which I already own a version of for the PS2! I basically bought a £200 paper weight, not to mention the cost of a memory card that DOESN’T even come with the console, and brand new game to play at launch, bringing the grand total just shy of £260.
So to sum up, I am in no way ragging on the Vita, its a solid console with slick graphics, but please take my advice and wait for them to at least bring in the backwards compatabilty, and DO YOUR RESEARCH! Check if there are games out that you actually want to buy now and in the future. I’ll hold my hand up and admit I made a foolish mistake by impulse buying without checking up on it first. Don’t make the same mistake as me.
Was this review helpful to you?
|