The original PS Vita is a fantastic handheld system that is drastically underrated. It has a plethora of great games and a great looking 5-in OLED touch-screen that makes the colors look vibrant. The PS Vita is also the first ever handheld gaming system to have two analog sticks and a back touch-pad. There was some problems though. The system is pretty powerful, it touts a quad-core CPU, 512MB of RAM, and 128MB of VRAM. With that power, the battery life had to be affected. On a single gaming session it lasted about 3-5 hours. Also the back-touchpad was a little big, there was some accidental presses here and there; and the original PS Vita was a little heavy, causing some strain during long gaming sessions.
The long awaited slim redesign of the PlayStation Vita has finally come out overseas. The PS Vita Slim lives up to it's name, it is about 20% thinner and 15% lighter. The weight and height differences are totally noticeable and as a result the slim model is much more comfortable to hold for a extended gameplay session. The system itself looks fantastic. It looks modern, with its rounded corners; and the build quality is great, it does not feel like a cheap knock off of its older brother.
The PS Vita game slot is easier to access and has been moved to the middle at the top. The original had it on the top but to the right and to the left of it was a mystery port that was never used which is now absent in the newest model. Gone is also the proprietary charging cable which is now a standard micro-usb charger that you get with almost every handheld device that is not made by Apple.
The battery life in the slim model is better than the original. The battery lasts a little more than a hour longer and pumped out gamings that were about 4-6 hours long on a single charge. The better battery life does come at a cost though. Instead of the originals beautiful OLED screen, the slim has a LCD screen. Yes, the LCD is not as vibrant as the OLED. The LCD still makes everything happening on the PS Vita look great. You can only tell a difference if you put the 2 models side by side. Honestly, I would rather have the longer battery life with a minor downgrade in screen quality anyday.
The software portion of the system is exactly the same across both of the models. The LiveArea is still as quick and snappy as ever. You can play games, earn PSN trophies, download a plethora of games off the PlayStation Store via WiFi or usb transfer, surf the web with decent web browser, setup calendar events, read emails, look at maps, listen to music, watch movies, and view pictures or take them with the same crappy 3MP cameras that are only good for skype.
You can organize your games into folders. Each game has a LiveArea the the developers can fully customize with links to websites, news updates, leaderboards, and much more. Your friends can give a like or comment on in-game activities that you have accomplished within the LiveArea also.
The PS Vita can also remotely connect with PS3 games and play a few of them or connect with the PS4 and play almost every game available for the PS4. Remote-Play works fantastically on the PS Vita and it works great as a second controller for the PS4.
The buttons and speakers almost remain the same between the two. The buttons are in good locations and have a nice responsiveness to them. The Home, Start, and Select buttons are much better now. Instead of hard to press little ovals, they are now nicely sized circles that are now much easier to press. The back-touchpad has also received an upgrade. The touchpad is smaller which mean no more accidental presses. The speakers are still crisp and clear although they still lack in the bass department.
As awesome as the PS Vita is there is still one glaring problem that both the models have, memory card prices. The slim model does have 1GB of built-in memory but it becomes useless because you can not use it in a combination with a memory card. It's either the 1GB or the memory card, not both. Thankfully the slim model out now comes with a 8GB memory card and Borderlands 2, which is a great game. If you ever want to upgrade your storage just be prepared to pay a pretty penny to be able to afford the 16GB and the 32GB memory card.
The PS Vita Slim is still a great handheld that has plenty of great games to play around with. Everything that Sony has changed is for the better with the slim model. It is lighter, thinner, and overall more comfortable to hold for a long period of time. It is still an attractive looking system with great looking screen, although not as good as the originals OLED. The battery life lasts a little more than an hour longer as far as gaming goes than on the original. The only huge downfall is the memory card prices which will make the system $50-$100 more expensive if you want to upgrade your storage. As of the time of this review, the PS Vita Slim comes bundled with Borderlands 2 and a 8GB memory card for $199.99 which is a fine price for what you get.
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