PSP Firmware update 3.80: Finally something useful...

The PSP (Playstation Portable) Has had its handful of updates to its firmware since its release in 2005 (In NA anyways) yet I'm still amazed of how slow they've been in developing updates to such a versatile machine... O_o; I mean, we had to wait like half a year for the browser, which is probably the biggest and most noticeable update in general .___.;; then after the browser came a sort of standstill with updates like the ability to turn off Auto UMD loading, adding compatibility for an image format each year (lol) or support for window's WMA format (which who in his right mind would use?). 3.0 was somewhat of a relief, as finally we got support for RSS feeds, but like most updates, its so limited. Yes, you can use RSS feeds, but the compatibility is very low -__-; The feed is only useful if it has an attachment like an mp3, video or (now in ver. 3.80) images, but something so fundamental like TEXT seems to have escaped the development process. 3.0 also introduced visualizations, which ok, they're flashy, but I rather have an improved browser than jumping lights to entertain me while I hear music which makes you think who actually hears his music while watching the visualizations? I just hit play and put it in my pocket or turn off the screen to save battery. Now that I mentioned browser, it brings up the topic on how the browser sucks so bad...

#1 It is SLOW
#2 If you go to a site with a reasonable amount of images, you are screwed, the page will simply stop loading.

They tried "fixing" this, but I would compare the "fix" to when you take only one tylenol and you actually have a migraine. This "patch" just reloads the site with lower image quality but the amount of sites you can see now than before doesn't vary much.

On to what I like, since otherwise this is too negative -lol- Well, in update 3.80 I only liked the radio station app. Though app is too big of a word, its web browser based but it really does the job well done. With a WIDE variety of genres, each with its own different stations, you'll always have something to listen to, especially when you're tired of the MP3s you have in the Mem stick. Other than that there's a new visualization which is actually the crappiest... Other than that I read that there's some improvements on the themes system, haven't checked that out completely so I don't know. The themes is probably the coolest feature to be added after the web browser, giving more space to customization, it really looks and works great.

Things I wish they would work on:

1. Instant messenger App. Please, no more web browser based stuff, a good ol' program that simply connects to the major IM networks. There's a ton of open source progs they can use -__-; Its nothing too complicated.
2. More video support PLEASE for the love of god. I hate having to encode each and every video is annoying, which is why I don't.
3. This doesn't really fall in firmware, but I'd wish they'd have more demos. I'm pretty broke and I hate taking risks when buying a game (Tokobot anyone?)
4. More features, even a crappy calculator would be nice, but come on, at least some PDA style stuff.

Well that pretty much covers my rants on the PSP firmware updates. The PSP is already 2 years old, by now it should have a ton of new features while they've only managed to make 3 noticeable features that are worth having and using.