I picked up a Game Boy Micro yesterday. The only reason I wanted one was because I have a Play-Yan (the original model) and wanted to see how well it would work as a music player slash pocket video player. Two words can describe it.
Fvcking sweet.
It's the perfect size to be a portable music player. You can put it in your shirt pocket, strap a lanyard around your neck (which actually works pretty well and isn't embarassing), slip it in your pants pocket if you have a long enough earphone cord. Whatever. The faceplates means you can change the look of your music player depending on what you're wearing or what music you've got. White and Chrome is cool and all, but I think I want to track down one of those black electric plates for my black GB Micro.
I was flat-out stunned by how well it played video. I loaded up some MP4s on the SD card and expected it to be hard to see and have hard-to-read subtitle text. Believe it or not, the video quality was comparable to that of the PSP's when using similarly-encoded video files. Obviously, the resolution is smaller since you can put the entire GB micro on just the PSP's screen, but because the micro pixels are packed closer together, the video comes out really good. The backlight seals the deal as far as I'm concerned.
The screen size isn't an issue. In terms of proportions, you could even claim that the GB micro screen is the biggest, since the screen takes up about 60% of the surface area. The intentional concavity of the front's design augments the screen size. If you already have one, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't used one yet, the screen is the best Game Boy one ever.
The only thing that sucks about my Play-Yan and Micro combo is putting it in sleep mode to listen to music. I've had the original Play-Yan model since about the time the thing first launched in Japan. Since the Micro's face buttons are exposed, stuffing it in a tight pocket will press them, which kicks the unit out of sleep, and the PY Micro was redesigned so that wouldn't happen. I can see why they discontinued the old model PY; quite frankly, I think I want to get rid of my PY and buy a PY Micro just so I don't have to deal with the hassle of being careful about sleep mode.
Nintendo should have had the Play-Yan ready to go for the GB Micro launch. It's a perfect, perfect fit. I know they want to get it over here, and quickly, but my only guess is that they're either waiting for the initial GB Micro sales to slow down before introducing it (which won't happen until after the holidays, apparently) or they see a hole in their own GBA lineup that they'd like to plug by releasing it. Hell, they may be planning a Revolution download service to get classic videogame music onto SD cards, then release it with the new console.
Say, that's a good idea...
Fvcking sweet.
It's the perfect size to be a portable music player. You can put it in your shirt pocket, strap a lanyard around your neck (which actually works pretty well and isn't embarassing), slip it in your pants pocket if you have a long enough earphone cord. Whatever. The faceplates means you can change the look of your music player depending on what you're wearing or what music you've got. White and Chrome is cool and all, but I think I want to track down one of those black electric plates for my black GB Micro.
I was flat-out stunned by how well it played video. I loaded up some MP4s on the SD card and expected it to be hard to see and have hard-to-read subtitle text. Believe it or not, the video quality was comparable to that of the PSP's when using similarly-encoded video files. Obviously, the resolution is smaller since you can put the entire GB micro on just the PSP's screen, but because the micro pixels are packed closer together, the video comes out really good. The backlight seals the deal as far as I'm concerned.
The screen size isn't an issue. In terms of proportions, you could even claim that the GB micro screen is the biggest, since the screen takes up about 60% of the surface area. The intentional concavity of the front's design augments the screen size. If you already have one, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't used one yet, the screen is the best Game Boy one ever.
The only thing that sucks about my Play-Yan and Micro combo is putting it in sleep mode to listen to music. I've had the original Play-Yan model since about the time the thing first launched in Japan. Since the Micro's face buttons are exposed, stuffing it in a tight pocket will press them, which kicks the unit out of sleep, and the PY Micro was redesigned so that wouldn't happen. I can see why they discontinued the old model PY; quite frankly, I think I want to get rid of my PY and buy a PY Micro just so I don't have to deal with the hassle of being careful about sleep mode.
Nintendo should have had the Play-Yan ready to go for the GB Micro launch. It's a perfect, perfect fit. I know they want to get it over here, and quickly, but my only guess is that they're either waiting for the initial GB Micro sales to slow down before introducing it (which won't happen until after the holidays, apparently) or they see a hole in their own GBA lineup that they'd like to plug by releasing it. Hell, they may be planning a Revolution download service to get classic videogame music onto SD cards, then release it with the new console.
Say, that's a good idea...