Hardware Guide 22:New Handheld Peripherals

More handheld gears for both the Nintendo DS/DS Lite, GameBoy Advance SP, GameBoy Micro and the PSP are going to rock the store shelves soon. Get to know more about them before buying.

DS MP3 Player

The Nintendo DS/DS Lite, GBA SP and GameBoy Micro would soon be able to play music, a nice added function that Nintendo handhelds have sorely missed. Use a SD card to save your songs and plug it into the device, which in turn, can be plugged into the GBA slots in the above mentioned Nintendo consoles. It is not known whether the device can accept movie files or not. However, a release date is still absent and you still have got to wait a while before you can get your hands on this add-on.

PSP camera

Fancy turning your PSP into a digital camera? Now, you can! The device weighs 15g and would fix into the USB slot atop the PSP. The camera, like many cameras of mobile phones, offers only 1.31 megapixel of resolution. There is also a digital zoom function that allows you to zoom in on the subject before you snap away. All pictures are stored in the JPEG format. Even more amazing is that the camera is also capable of taking videos, although each video is strictly limited to 15 seconds. The camera takes 30fps videos 480 X 272 resolution. Once the video is taken, it can be edited with 74 different effects and background music can be added too. The video can be viewed directly on the PSP or it can be transferred to the PC. A great replacement for the camera in your mobile phone. Releases in Japan on December 7 and comes with a case. Release information for other countries is not yet known.

PSP GPS receiver

Another creative additon to the functionality of the PSP, the PSP GPS receiver weighs a mere 16g, almost as light as the PSP camera. It takes only 1 second to refresh your position and has an accuracy of 5m. Unfortunately, the device does not come packaged with a GPS software. Similarly to the PSP camera, it would also launch in Japan on December 7, but release dates for other countries are currently not known. A great tool for anyone who needs to find their way.

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In addition to these 3 peripherals, the Nintendo DS Browser, which allows the DS/DS Lite users to browse the Internet has already been announced and released in Japan. The Opera browser has yet to arrive in other countries. The browser essentially puts the funtionality of the DS/DS Lite on par with the PSP. To read more about the Nintendo DS Browser, click here to read the article by Powerplay.