The Sony PSP Go is a fourth generation portable handheld gaming and multimedia handled device. The PSP Go marks a radical shift for Sony’s portable games console. It is now more compact than ever with slide-out-controls to save space and more importantly it is now completely digital. A first for a dedicated handheld gaming device.

The PSP Go is smaller and lighter than previous PSPs. The 3.8-inch LCD, while half an inch smaller than previous PSPs, retains the 480 x 272 resolution of old, meaning a crisper looking screen thanks to the increased pixel density.

The only addition in terms of hardware is the inclusion of Bluetooth 3.0. This allows you to pair up with Bluetooth stereo headphones, tether to a laptop or cell phone for Internet access, and even pair with a PlayStation 3 controller (Sixaxis or DualShock 3) and play your PSP games with a “real” controller.

The mechanism that slides the screen up to reveal the controls is quite sturdy.  The controls themselves have been changed significantly, with the directional pad and face buttons sporting a much clickier feel.

One area that hasn’t seen any change in all three revisions of the PSP is the Wi-Fi. The brand-new PSP Go uses the nine-year-old 802.11b standard, and it’s incapable of dealing with WPA2 encryption, which is the only totally secure Wi-Fi protocol around.

Gone is the mini-USB port, meaning not only will you need a proprietary cable to charge your PSP Go, but none of the existing PSP accessories like the camera or GPS will work without the purchase of a adapter. Also gone is the replaceable battery, meaning that with a maximum of six hours battery life, you will have to plan your long distance travel times a bit more carefully.

On the software front there is one attractive feature that stand out for us, and that is the ability to pause a game. You can hit the to listen to music or watch a movie  and then resume your game without actually having to use the in-game save functionality – which is a reasonably useful addition, as some developers haven’t quite grasped the concept that people playing their games on the move might not always be able to play for another ten minutes to reach the next save point.

As for games, the maximum UMD can hold is 1.8GB, so you’ll fit at least eight games on the internal storage of the PSP Go – but you’re likely to fit a few more on there than that, with the content-heavy Gran Turismo weighing in at just over 1GB.