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| Summary: Not Enough Bang for Your Buck
75
The Nyko Theater Experience for the PSP is a product that I have had my eyes on for quite some time now. When I heard of its release, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it for a review! After an extensive search for online stores that weren't out of stock, I had to actually drive down to a local store to check its availability there. I was told that there was one left in a town that was about an hour away. Wow, this thing is already hot on the market! Needless to say, I took the drive, paid the steep $80 price tag, and here is my review.
The basic idea of the Nyko Theater Experience is to turn your PSP into a portable DVD player. I think this is a cool idea, considering all the DVDs that are available for the PSP. The Theater Experience has several features.
The first is feature is a study hard-shell case for your PSP. Although the case is about 12 inches long, and a bit heavy, it is quite protective if you decide to use it in place of a standard PSP case. Unfortunately, there is no space in it to hold any of your UMD movies, or anything else for that matter. That's kind of a downer, but I know this wasn't exactly designed with the idea of a portable DVD case in mind.
Secondly, the Theater Experience comes with a built in 7-hour PSP battery. If you ask me, this is the most appealing part of the Theater Experience. If you include about 4 hours of playtime from your original PSP's battery, that's a total of 11 hours of playtime with the Theater Experience! I am really looking forward to this, as I will be leaving for Europe in a couple days. The plane ride will be about 12 hours long, which fits perfectly with the PSP and the Theater's battery life. That is, of course, if I sit glued to my PSP the entire time!
When the battery on the Theater Experience is charged, and a PSP is connected, it automatically draws power from the Theater Experience battery first. That way you can watch a movie, then take your PSP out of the case and still have a full charge. The PSP will also automatically charge it's battery using the battery on the Theater Experience when it is connected and not in use. The Theater Experience comes with both DC in and DC out plugs. It does not come with an AC adapter, but instead works fine with the adapter that came with your PSP. Because there is both an in and an out, it allows you to charge both your Theater Experience battery and your PSP's battery at the same time. The kit comes with a cord that allows you to charge your PSP from the Theater Experience without having to dock it. This way, if your PSP's battery is dead, you can play games while using the battery in the Theater Experience as your power source.
The third, and main feature of the Theater Experience, is it's audio amplifier and speakers. Unfortunetly, I am afraid this is where the Theater Experience falls short. To put it bluntly, the 2 speakers on the Theater Experience sound basically like louder versions of the PSP's built in speakers. In other words, the sound is louder, but there are plenty of issues with the crappy low-end output. If you are listening to music that has a strong bass line or beat, don't plan on turning up the volume to more than about 75% without getting distortion. This was a dissappointment. However, when watching movies with a more blended orchestral score, you can turn up the Theater Experience quite loud without much distortion. It's mainly the hard bass lines and beats that come through weak.
Despite that, the Theater Experience does an awesome job at simulating surround sound from such small speakers! Seriously, when watching a movie, if you were to walk to another room, you would have no idea the kind of sound you heard was coming from a PSP! Once again, this effect is used best when watching movies with a strong classical score, since there is little or no distortion, and the sound comes out very clear. I should also mention that while in the PSPs menus, there is quite a bit of electronic distortion that comes out of the speakers. When you listen to music or watch a movie, it isn't noticeable though, so I can't really mark it off for that.
Finally, the Theater Experience offers 2 headphone outputs, as well as an eigth inch audio output. The kit even includes an eigth inch stereo cord with 2 male ends. This allows you to use the speakers in the Theater Experience without having to actually dock your PSP in it. This works great for playing games, the sounds from the speakers on the Theater Experience, and the surround sound simulator really add to the gaming experience. But be careful, the speakers can be pretty loud, so make sure no one is sleeping when you do this!
So here are my final thoughts on Nyko's highly anticipated Theater Experience. It's good, but not good enough for an $80 price tag. Had this been closer to $60 or $50, it would probably be more reasonable to buy. I will probably get quite some use out of this, but mainly for its battery, and dual headphone outputs for long trips. Because the quality of the sounds is not the greatest, it will most likely not be the choice for playing music at a party or other social event. I was really hoping that Nyko's Theater Experience would make my PSP more versatile as far as the sound goes. Unfortunately, it will probably only be used on long trips, which I don't take very often. Because the case leaves no room for any other accessories or UMDs, I am gonna stick with the original case I bought for my PSP. All in all, I give this product a B-. It has a lot of little perks that are cool, and the extended battery is great, but fails to deliver in the main category that it boasts, and that is good PSP audio amplification.
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