PS3 first thoughts

[menthel]

I got my PS3 at the weekend so have spent a little bit of time with it. The first thing that strikes you is that what a beast it is! I nearly put my back out carrying home.

However once unboxed the machine itself does feel more sturdy than the 360, although its looks did cause some controversy. I am glad it is in a cupboard. It is a bit too big and too ugly. On the other hand my friends wife saw it and loved it immediately. So much in fact my friend was allowed to buy one! (On the proviso that he quit WoW...)

Setup was easy, despite having to restructure my home cinema, although I don't like the pad charging from the USB ports on such short leads. Once in setting up to my TV (Panny 37PV500) was simple and the picture looked great. The sound will take a little longer to get the best from my Onkyo 674, as it cannot decode the blu-ray codecs (Dolby True HD and DTS HD) and it seems a little front heavy on DVD's. I have kept my DVD player connected for now.

Once done I took a little trip around the menus. I do think that the 360 does this better. There are some foibles in the menu structures that do not make sense, especially when browsing music. I really want, for example, for it to be able to go: genre:artist:album but instead of album it just goes to songs. Not good. It plays most of my divx's well and the picture quality is always good.

I have not played any games as yet, so will report back on that once I have given the ones I got a go (uncharted and resistance). However I know from the off that I prefer the 360 controller, despite using PS controllers since just after launch of the original!

All in all a bargain at £299 inc 2 games and another controller.

Fell free to add menthel as a friend!

[directhex]

you can use any old usb-a-to-usb-mini cable to extend the painfully short charging length to the sofa. needing to do so, however, is dumb

[menthel]

It just seems so last century to be wired up like that. The 360 controllers with removable batteries makes so much more sense. I love having 2 batteries in the charger and two in the controllers.

[TheAnimus]

or better yet, a mobile phone charger for a windows mobile phone, that way you can just use the mini-usb plug on that to charge it, whilst sitting miles away from the screen.

Pretty much confermed my first impressions, stylistically its not what i'd of done, but looks a hell of a lot better than the 360, and feals like its better built. Also sounds a lot quiter!

As a music player i think you'd agree its useless! the visualisations aren't bad for a cd player but its really years behind Media Center.

[Prime]

just keep the pads charged when your not using them.

[Gunbuster]

Was it the Game weekend PS3 deal?
I got the same, but with Ratchett and Clank + Uncharted.

[menthel]

Ah, I forgot to mention how wonderfully quiet it is! I cannot hear it at all!

The problem with keeping the controllers charged when not in use is that they do not charge from the console unless it is actually on. However, they do charge quickly.

It was the game offer. They did not let me swap the games. I wanted to get ratchet and clank instead of resistance. Used some spare game credit to grab an HDMI cable and a remote too. I like the remote a lot. Well laid out and very responsive. Then again so is the 360 one.

[spazman]

I found the 360 streams more files than the ps3 does video wise, and id agree the menus are pretty crap also although i was used to them having a PSP. What were they thinking having built in batteries, taken a leaf out of apples book there.

[poozle]

Originally Posted by menthel

I got my PS3 at the weekend so have spent a little bit of time with it. The first thing that strikes you is that what a beast it is! I nearly put my back out carrying home.

I got the deal from game as well and I made a MUCH bigger mistake, I had to go food shopping so bought the PS3 THEN went to Sainsbury's, was carrying 3 bags of shopping, a rucksack full of shopping AND the PS3 (AND it was pouring down, got SO wet).

Once I finally got it home (with no water damage) I updated the console, then dropped into the store to get some demos downloading in the background (a very useful feature) and then went to play Ratchet and Clank for a bit, tried out quite a few demos now, some good, some not so good.

I've got quite a few old games (PS2/PSP) and a fat PSP I'm planning on taking into game to trade in for more games, I also don't plan on playing F1 really because I didn't want it in the first place, might try ebaying that one because they said the trade in value is £6-8!

I think I'm elzoop on PSN if anyone wants to add me as a friend.

And agreed menthel, the last 2 night I've left it on (downloading demos and folding) hasn't disturbed me at all, it was quite warm in my room when I woke up though so I just turned the radiator off

Absolutely loving the console though, took seconds to get it connecting to Media Player on my PC and the remote play to PSP is great fun, I was quite surprised when I had it on remote play, was streaming music from my laptop, to my PS3 and then remote played it onto my PSP. My bluetooth headset works with it perfectly. All I need to do now is find out if my TV supports DVI-D (I suspect its only DVI-I) and if it does get a HDMI to DVI-D so I can actually get HD quality on my TV.

Well, I've rambled on enough

If anyone has some suggestions for good games to get I'm all ears

[Gerrard]

I got my PS3 because there were another 7 people with them in the building I could play on a LAN with and we didn't have broadband at the time. I love how quiet it is. I leave it on overnight Folding in my room and it doesn't disturb me at all. Couldn't do that with the Xbox. The looks have sort of grown on me, and the black gloss finish goes with the finish on the Samsung TV, but it attracts finger marks and dust far too easiliy! I prefer the layout of the XBox controller though personally, but the PS3 one is lighter and has the SixAxis thing (although I have yet to use it).

[menthel]

The PSP link thing is rather nifty! I was surprised how well it worked and the high quality of the streamed data, although this was only across the room!

Uncharted seems to be rather Lara by numbers but prettier. It is good fun though, despite some tearing issues.

[poozle]

Originally Posted by menthel

The PSP link thing is rather nifty! I was surprised how well it worked and the high quality of the streamed data, although this was only across the room!

Theres one funny thing I've noticed with the PSP link, if you go to the Store through the link it actually looks better (imo) on the PSP, almost as if it was designed for it.

Also (again imo) Pixel Junk Monsters was a lot better to play on the PSP, on my TV I couldn't really see the progress bars on the towers but on the PSP it seemed a lot clearer.

[Carlh]

I also got a ps3 at the weekend

First impressions were almost identical to yours menthel.

Saying that I havent had much chance to play on it properly as been sorting arrangements out for my wedding next month, hopefully will get some free time over the weekend to test the divx and media streaming capabilities

[Stringent]

The PS3 is in a cupboard? It will get hot and overheat if thats the case ...

[menthel]

Gah! This thing amazes me and annoys me in equal amounts. It is not mature as a media centre if you cannot listen to music whilst installing a downloaded game. Lets hope that gets fixed!

[Gunbuster]

One thing I should mention is that Gamersyde's MP4 videos work perfectly in from the PS3 and can be downloaded locally from the PS3 web browser.
Nice to add some more Wipeout HD vids

Also don't forget you can add 15sec thumbclips from when you choose in a video via the onscreen menu (triangle).