Well, we all remember Sony's E3 presentation. There were lots of games, but there was also a major announcement about a redesigned PSP. According to Sony the battery life in the new version is "enhanced."

This had the attending press writing things like, "The system will be 33% lighter, 19% slimmer, and will feature a better battery life and faster loading times." The problem lies in that "better battery life" statement, because it's not quite true.

Since the PSP redesign is a major part of Sony's new lineup, I noticed lots of interviewers were asking questions about there PSP. Jack Tretton did an interview with Mercury News.

If you read through the interview, Tretton is a big fan of his "perspective" and the interviewer makes a great many comments about how you need to be looking through Jack's perspective to see things the way he's laying them out...

Well, you can swallow the "perspective" line until you come to a very distinct question that left no wiggle room for good ole' Jack...

"Q: One very narrow question. Can you quantify the improved battery life on the PSP?"

Now we would assume he would skip the specifics and just give some general percentages that can be expected, correct? I mean, one of the biggest faults of the PSP is the fact that a full battery can barely get you through a long movie or gaming session.

Even Jack Tretton says he carries an extra battery with his PSP in the interview, speaking about his personal PSP he says, "I’m a huge fan too. I bring an extra battery with me. I swap them out. That is a matchbook size. I put it in a case with UMDs in it. I want to have stuff with me. I fly to Japan and I spend the almost entire flight with my PSP. I can get through a flight to Tokyo on two batteries."

Now, since Jack has to bring two batteries in order to make the PSP last through his flight, you think battery life will be a major change in the new PSP, right?



"Q: One very narrow question. Can you quantify the improved battery life on the PSP?"

"A: Yes I can but the point of clarification is it’s not necessarily improved battery life. It’s comparable battery life in a smaller form. It’s comparable juice coming out of a smaller battery."

Yup, that's right, it's "improved" if you take the fact that it's smaller into account... Come on! That is the biggest cop out EVER... 2 years, and you could only put in a smaller battery?

So... they completely redesigned the PSP to fix the problems and make it the ultimate hand-held... but didn't bother to actually raise up the battery life

Way to spin some more Sony, I WAS actually considering getting a new version PSP, but not anymore.