Oct. 1--I am almost alone with a PlayStation Portable Go.

It's a semi-enviable position. I have the chance to fiddle around with Sony's next uber-gadget, but unfortunately, I can't take it home. This is what the folks in the industry call "hands-on time." I can do nearly anything with the piece of tech except for the one thing nearly everyone wants to do -- keep it.

I take the device out of the box. It's as light as my iPhone but a little thicker. The screen dazzles with a slick transition from clock to home screen. I flip through the system's Xross Media Bar (XMB), delighting at its ability to play games, video and music. And for a second, I wonder if I could steal it.

I could walk the 45 steps to the front door of the PR agency and slip out with it in my jean jacket pocket. I could run like a madman through downtown San Francisco and luck into an East Bay-bound BART train. Of course, I also would be in trouble. The publicist knows where to find me. I'd be thrown in jail and mocked by the other inmates. Is the PSPgo really worth all that trouble?

Downloads only

Glancing at the hand-held again, I appraised it with a new eye. If I were a bigger man like, say, Shaquille O'Neal, I'd say that the device would be hopelessly too tiny. The buttons are smaller and flatter compared to the older models. When I hold it (my hands are 8 1/2 inches from thumb to pinkie),

my fingers crisscross at the back.

The PSPgo, which officially goes on sale today, only accepts downloadable games. That could be its greatest strength and its most glaring weakness. That means those who have all their old PSP games on disc will have to buy them again via the PlayStation Store. For gamers, it's the musical equivalent of repurchasing all that old vinyl on compact discs. It will be a hassle for those transitioning to the new system, and it could cost an obscene amount of money. Sony is selling downloadable games at the same price as their disc-based counterparts.

On the other hand, nothing can be more convenient than downloading new games to the system's 16GB of memory. It's a simple process. I just went to the PlayStation Store on the XMB and downloaded a free video, and I also picked up a "SOCOM" title. Both choices went directly into the PSP. The experience is definitely eco-friendly. No plastic packaging had to be thrown in a landfill. I saved gas by staying put instead of driving to the store.

A major annoyance

The one qualm I had was that I wasn't able to put any of those downloads in the background. I had to let the PSPgo sit there, inert, while the games downloaded. It's an annoyance that Sony should fix in the future.

The problem that should have been addressed is the system's battery life. I expected the PSPgo to run as long as a Nintendo DSi. After all, it doesn't have to power a UMD drive. Unfortunately, Sony reports that the PSPgo runs just as long as the other PSP models.

At a price of $249, there should be more incentives to buy this handheld than a sexier design and a flashier OS. I could go out and buy a PSP-3000 and a 16GB memory stick on Amazon for less money and still be able to use my favorite games.

The more I thought about it, I realized that maybe I don't need a PSPgo. Although Sony has taken a bold step offering a handheld that takes game via download, the value's not there yet.

Yes, I'm probably better off with the older model, but still, I want one. It's the future of portable gaming, for crying out loud. When I sniff it, the PSPgo even smells like the future. But with the current state of the economy, the future is sadly out of my price range. Maybe I should cross my fingers and wait for a price drop. It eventually will happen.

Reach Gieson Cacho at 510-735-7076 or gcacho@bayareanews group.com. Read his blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/

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