I realise that to all you Americans, this is just old hack. But these things only came out in the UK a couple of weeks ago, and they are sold out everywhere already. I had the chance to play with a PSP for a couple of days recently, borrowing it off my uncle. For the first time, I actually understood what all the fuss was about. It’s a marvel of engineering, and it just about does everything you could want it to.

The screen is a work of art. I have never seen such a bright, clear display on any handheld gadget before. I’ve been experimenting with Medievil, Wipeout and a strange game called Mercury. Unfortunately, I don’t own a Memory Stick Duo - only a Memory Stick Pro - so I couldn’t really try it with video or photos etc. That’s a shame, because I would really like to see how the interface works for it.

But as much as I like it, two things will stop me buying one (no, it’s not the price - I think that’s pretty reasonable). Firstly, the cost of games - way out of proportion, and completely ridiculous. Unless someone finds a way to download them and stick em on a Memory Stick, that’s a big problem. Secondly, the lack of a hard drive. That’s just terrible. What good is a 1gb Memory Stick when I want to store all my photos, music and videos. A hard drive (even a smallish 4gb flash one like the new iPod Nano) would have made my drop my iPod and run to the local game store.

Maybe in the PSP2….