Design & Functionality
It’s worth pointing, despite how obvious it may appear to be, that the V-Screen is an unpowered accessory. This simply means it doesn’t require any kind of battery or electrical power. The V-Screen does what it does ‘passively,’ if you will. And what exactly does it do? Two functions: provide your PSP with an exterior hard plastic shell for protection, and make anything on your PSP appear larger and add a slightly increased sense of depth to 3D games.
In its stored form, the V-Screen folds down and locks into the top of its shell. With the shell completely closed (PSP inside), it’s about 1.5x as thick as my trusty old Logitech clear plastic protective case. Much like that Logitech case, slots are cut out of the shell to reveal the L and R buttons as well as the ‘string loop’ in the lower left and the charging port on the lower right. The USB port on top is also revealed, something my Logitech case has blocked. In just about every other way, the V-Screen shells functions just like my Logitech case, but I will point out that you can’t move the top of the shell beyond ninety degrees. Sometimes, depending on how I am sitting or what lighting I am working with, I will push the top cover of my Logitech case beyond ninety degrees for ergonomics sake. I can’t do that with the V-Screen, which really isn’t a big deal, but I did want to mention that.
While the V-Screen shell does a nice job, the primary purpose of the V-Screen is to improve how content appears on your PSP. When you’re ready to use the V-Screen, simply press on the button locking mechanism in the top of the shell. It’s located on the right side of the screen and is just a plastic button that is about the size of your thumb. This allows the screen to pop out from its stowed state. The screen moves about seventy degrees by itself, requiring you to just give it a light, natural tap to raise it up the rest of the way. It doesn’t work quite right when it’s not perfectly parallel to the PSP’s screen, so you’ll want to make sure it stays in its fully extended position for every use. That’s perfectly easy to do though as once the screen is extended, it holds its position firmly unless you press down on it to store it back again.
To this point, I was pleased with the design and was now ready to see how the PSP changed my movie and gaming experience. My first active view was that of the PSP’s interface, the XMB. The screen looked much larger, about the size of the entire PSP rather than just its normal size. It’s certainly easier on the eyes, and the colors translated nicely too. The V-Screen looks better in a darker environment, which shouldn’t come as a surprise.
I started testing games and movies, including God of War: Chains of Olympus, Tekken 6, Coded Arms, Mytran Wars, LocoRoco, NFS: Pro Street, and NBA 10. I spent much more time with game testing than movies as I rarely watch movies on my PSP. Although, with the V-Screen making everything appear larger, I may be more inclined to watch movies while traveling.
As far as gaming goes, RealView claims that racing games and platforming titles will benefit the most from the V-Screen “as users are drawn into a faster and more exhilarating experiential adventure. In addition, many of the fine details show up far better on the screen which means scores are likely to improve.” In practice, and in general for all games tested, the most noticeable change is the size of the image. Second to that is the increased level of detail, which is in some ways a good and bad thing. On one hand, you do see games more close up, but you’ll also see the matrix of pixels on the PSP screen far more clearly too. Finally, for games like God of War and Syphon Filter, I did notice just a marginally improved image. The difference isn’t enough in itself to make me want to replay through a bunch of these games, but it does add just a little bit to the presentation.
My only major complaint with the V-Screen is that to see your entire PSP screen, you must hold the V-Screen a certain way. For me, sitting in a chair to where I could comfortably hold and use the PSP, this was at about chest height and six inches from my face. If I moved around or held the unit much differently than that, part of my PSP screen went away and I couldn’t see it without adjusting. This is simple physics of course, not some design flaw or a matter of bad material being used. For extended gaming sessions or even short ones though, just be aware that you do need to maintain a certain eye relief relative to the screen or you will lose sight of the action.
Finally, I did also notice a small piece of fabric and some dust stuck in the middle of my V-Screen. Generally speaking, this wasn’t noticeable when I was playing a movie or game, but hey, it’s not supposed to be there. It is pretty easy to take the screen apart for a cleaning however, something that you hopefully won’t have to do too often.
If you happen to be in Las Vegas this week and are attending CES, you can check out the V-Screen for yourself at RealView’s booth which is #5621 in the North Hall.
To the summary…