Ken Kutaragi On PSP\'s Battery Life

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"While Sony has finally revealed the estimated battery usage of its upcoming PSP handheld, the figures revealed earlier this week aren\'t necessarily set in stone. Speaking to Impress PC Watch, Kutaragi predicted that the system might eventually last longer on a single charge than the four to six hours confirmed on Tuesday.

"In the future, we\'d like a single charge to last for a flight between Narita and New York," Kutaragi said, pointing out that the earliest generations of Sony\'s Walkman cassette player consumed a set of batteries in only two hours. Flying from Tokyo\'s main international airport to the east coast of the United States takes as much as 14 hours, as a rule.

As developers refine their techniques for processor utilization and memory management with the PSP, they\'ll be able to extend the system\'s battery life, Kutaragi said. How they utilize the handheld\'s wireless LAN features is also a factor. Even now, the announced four to six hour battery life is an average figure, he noted -- "A puzzle game will last longer, but Ridge Racer will probably be shorter than that."

Future developments in semiconductor manufacturing could reduce the power consumption of the PSP\'s chips, as well. Kutaragi mentioned that while the first revision of the hardware contains chips manufactured using a 90-nanometer process, a future generation of chips manufactured with a 65-nanometer process would cost less to produce and use less power as well.

Kutaragi also proposed that the PSP\'s removable RAM capacity might increase considerably in the future. While the Memory Stick DUO flash RAM that the system employs currently offers a maximum of one gigabyte of storage, Kutaragi suggested that advances in RAM development could expand its capacity to multiple gigabytes, though iPod-level capacities of 20 or 40 gigabytes would be a bit much to expect."

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Well four to six hours is good enough for me. I seldom play more then 40-60 minutes at a time, so one charge would last me at least four gaming sessions.

I imagine I\'d use it mostly at home or at "work", so I wont be that far away from a wall socket if I would ever need to emergency recharge.

Im glad Sony tried to improve the battery levels though, and that price is fricking unbeatable. Im seriously thinking about importing one from the US, if the EU release takes too long.

While I adore PSP\'s concept, there are some major concerns I have about it ;

battery life and disc media

Last week I bought Sony\'s Atrac33/mp3 walkman NW E75. It\'s 256mb solid state Flash memory and it plays Atrac3plus for about 60 hours on one single AAA battery.

I know it\'s a bit of a crooked comparison to PSP, but such battery life as the NW E75\'s is what we\'d rather have seen. I know ppl don\'t play like 4 hours continiously, but with starting up a PSP game a few times per day - I can\'t imagine ppl won\'t play only 1 game or 1 game session p/day - this all comes down to recharching each afternoon or evening. Pretty damn bothersome if you ask me.

I also wonder how prone the UMD disc will be to shocks. Minidiscs are also in a casing, but my old MD player skips/hangs fairly regularly these days when just walking.

Kutaragi also mentions the 65nm chips which are planned to power later PSP revisions. Those suck less energy. So, this basically means later PSP version will actually have better battery performance than launch PSP\'s ?

So,....I have my doubts...

I share your doubts, Knotter8.

I think that Sony is being a little optimistic when they say that battery life will last for 4-6 hours.

If true though, the battery life is pretty damn good for a system like the PSP, and the battery is detachable so you can buy another one if you really need it.


PS: BTW the price of the machine is a steal, but I have a feeling that we europeans (and poor aussies as well) are going to pay for the low price in the rest of the world.

/me has flashbacks to Xbox Pal release announcement (479€ for a system that costed 299$ in the US)

"Yeah, screw us! We\'re starting to like it!"

Since the PSP will be region free (games that is, movies will still be region locked), lets just import.