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Sonys answer to the 3DS? Well not really, it’s not 3D but what it does come with is a boatload of features not seen in the PSP or even other more recent handheld consoles. Let’s look at the technical specs first.

Lets get started

So what’s first? A 5″ touchscreen, well let’s put that in perspective the PSP 3000′s screen was only 4.3″ and the Nintendo DSi’s top screen is around 3.8” high. In fact it’s even bigger the DSi XL screen which measures only 4.2”. So we can see that the NGP has a rather large screen.

In fact the Sony NGP is pushing the boundaries on the term ‘Portable’ in fact it measures 182mm long by 84mm wide by 19mm high here’s a table comparing it to other handheld portables

Console	Height(mm)	Width(mm)	Depth(mm)
Sony NGP	84	182	19
Sony PSP 3000	71.4	169.4	18.6
Nintendo DSi XL	91.4	161	21.2
Nintendo DSi	74.9	137	18.9

So as you can see is longer than the others only slightly shorter and thinner that the DSi XL. This means that unless you work as a clown or tend to go out wearing your favourite set of ‘hammer pants’ then you might have trouble carrying around this “portable” games console.

You mentioned new features?

Yes I did, the Sony NGP come with twin cameras and speakers, the speakers aren’t new but the camera is, previously if you wanted pictures you had to buy a camera accessory for your PSP. GPS hints at the possibility of games that use your location to change things in game and many other possibility’s that come with adding GPS to a console.

By far the biggest new feature is the touch sensitive back panel, this means that instead of obscuring the game you’re playing behind your fingers you can just use the back panel as a touch screen. Hopefully you’ll be able to turn this feature of or else I would imagine you’d touch the back panel when just holding the console casually.

So should I get one?

In my opinion yes, with all the new features like touch sensitive back the Sony NGP promises to be an innovative and fun console. Let just hope that it doesn’t go the same way PSP did with hackers and homebrew software.

 

Thanks for reading
Stephen