The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004 and is the first handheld installment in the PlayStation line of consoles. As a seventh generation console, the PSP competed with the Nintendo DS.

The PlayStation Portable uses the common “bar” form factor. The front of the console is dominated by the system’s 4.3-inch (110 mm) LCD screen, which is capable of 480 × 272 pixel display resolution with 24-bit color. Also on the unit’s front are the four iconic PlayStation face buttons (△, ⭕️, ╳, □); the directional pad, the analog “nub”, and several other buttons. The system also has two shoulder buttons, a USB 2.0 mini-B port on the top of the console, and a wireless LAN switch and power cable input on the bottom. The back of the PSP features a read-only Universal Media Disc (UMD) drive for access to movies and games, and a reader compatible with Sony’s Memory Stick PRO Duo flash cards is located on the left of the system.

The PSP-E1000, however, is a budget-focused model that was released across the PAL region on October 26 2011. The E1000 lacks Wi-Fi capability and has a matte finish similar to that of the slim PlayStation 3. It has a monaural speaker instead of the previous models’ stereo speakers and lacks a microphone. This model also lacked the physical brightness buttons from the front of the handheld, instead offering brightness controls in the System Software’s ‘Power Save Settings’ menu. Additionally, it lacks Internet connectivity and this makes it very very easy to mod, using PSP CFW 6.60 LME. Just throw two files on the stick, run the Installer, then run the Launcher after every reboot. Ez pz.

I played a lot of stuff on this console, due to the library of great games available for it, after getting it as a birthday present from my coworkers back in 2011. All in all, it’s a very good console, with a ton of versatility and due to its better modding community and capability, I consider it better than the Nintendo Switch.

Rodrigo Copetti wrote a lot about the Sony PlayStation Portable in this excellent article.