Blue Raven PSP 15hr Extended Battery Review
A woeful three to six-hour battery life has dogged the PSP since launch. It's one of the handheld's more aggravating faults, especially with the competing DS Lite lasting upwards of 15 hours per charge on the lower brightness settings. Hopefully we'll see the issue corrected in an inevitable hardware revision, but for now we're stuck with third party accessories to ease the pain.
Blue Raven has come up with a fairly sleek attachable battery pack, which it claims lasts eight to 15 hours depending on what you're using it for (games, movies, MP3s, Wi-Fi, etc.). We put it through its paces, and those times seem pretty accurate if you drop an hour or two off either end. It's definitely nice not having to worry as much about charging your PSP every night like a cell phone if you're gaming regularly; just plug your normal PSP charger into the pack while it's attached to the system or by itself, and let it sit for a few hours (five-ish if you want it fully charged).
The battery weighs a bit less than the PSP itself and snaps on to the back, clipping into holes on the top and bottom of the system. It roughly doubles the size and adds about half the weigh of the PSP, but it fits incredibly snugly and adds some much-needed real estate depth for those of us who are endowed with gorilla hands. It's also finished with a very soft velvety rubber, and you'll find yourself rubbing your PSP against your cheeks even more than normal -- creep.
While it looks and feels pleasant and performs mostly in accordance with what it claims to, it's not all gravy. You have to remove the entire apparatus to access the disc slot to change games; it may not even be possible to design around that issue, but it's annoying regardless. Additionally, the included instructions show you how to snap on the device, but don't cover its operation whatsoever. Seems like a no-brainer, but we really weren't ever clear if we should run down the PSP's natural power before flipping the battery on, if the system itself can be charged through the battery (though it would appear not), or if we should leave the battery on while sleeping the system; lots of questions, with only our best guesses to answer. Oh, and don't leave the battery on when it's not in use; it will drain itself even if the system is turned off.
This is arguably the best battery solution yet for the PSP, but we still can't recommend it due to the most grievous flaw: a $90 price tag. Having to spend half the price of the entire system just to improve the battery functionality is an asinine concept, and one that you shouldn't have to buy into just to circumvent a design flaw. At $40-50 this would be an easy decision for serious PSP gamers, but as it stands it's simply too damn expensive.
