Sony's new PSP-3000 suffers from reduced battery life

Posted by Al Warmington on Tue 2 Sep 2008

That snazzy new screen doesn't power itself, you know

Here at T3 HQ, we're pretty excited about the new PSP-3000, which was just unveiled a couple of weeks ago. The brand-spanking-new LCD is the main highlight of the latest hardware update, which promises and (according to early sightings) provides significantly improved contrast and brightness that'll nicely show off handheld games, UMD movies and downloaded video in the kind of clarity you can even take outside into the daylight!

The trouble is, there's a bit of downside too. Sony marketing man John Koller revealed that "battery life will decrease by a small amount" as a result of the improved screen. Oh really - and how much are we talking then? "It's about 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes," Koller said, adding "that's because there's a little bit of a larger power draw with the brighter screen."

According to our calculations, that'll drop a standard battery time down to about 4 hours if you've got the brightness up to max and a UMD game on full whirl. Clearly the DS still has the PSP beaten hands down when it comes to long-haul in-flight entertainment.

There's a small consolation though - there is still a 2200mAh, extended life battery available to buy, which will up your play time to "eight-to-ten hours". Or if you don't want to cough up, you could just cannibalise a 1800mAh battery out of your original PSP.

(via Eurogamer)