BudgetGadgets PSP battery review

BudgetGadgets.com sent me a couple PSP accessories to review. They're a wholesaler in China, as far as I can tell, similiar to Deal Extreme or sites like that. Free shipping.

I've noticed there's a lot of interest in PSP batteries... the owners of the original PSPs (PSP-1000) are finding the life cycle of their battery may be winding down. And owners of PSP-2000/3000 are looking for alternatives since Sony has taken the Stamina battery off the market... it's hard to find an official PSP battery that isn't super-expensive because of importing. And can knock-offs or fakes be trusted?

Now comes my review of the 2nd item BudgetGadgets sent me : The 2200 mAh Stamina battery for PSP-1000.

As I said in my previous review, it took 2 weeks to ship the items to me in Canada. And shipping is free. The battery is certainly a good price. But is it any good? Read on.

As I mentioned in my review of the PSP controller grip, both items were sent without any packaging.

The first thing I noticed with the 2200 mAh battery is that it's much lighter than my official Sony 1800 mAh battey that came with my PSP-1001 back in 2006. Hmmm.

Sorry for the blurry picture. On the left is the 2200 mAh battery, on the right is my PSP's 1800 mAh battery. I noted the serial number on the 2200 mAh battery: 5105AKC and Googled it. Most of the links led to forum posts where people were saying it was a counterfeit. Oddly enough, my original PSP battery serial number came up with no hits....(but I know it's official since it came with my PSP I bought from Future Shop in 2006)

Anyway, not a good sign. Still, I wanted to determine how this 2200 mAh battery would perform.

From what I can tell it is the exact same size & shape as my original PSP battery.

I popped it into my PSP-1001 to charge it. I immediately checked the battery information in System Settings, and it said 96%! I was surprised it was so full of charge, since most rechargable batteries come with less than 50% charge straight out of the box. So charging took about 30 minutes.

I played Resistance: Retribution, I find that Sony Bends games are heavier on the battery use then other games because they have such high production values. With my normal 1800 mAh battery, I get about 3 hours of game time with Resistance: Retribution. I'm not a battery expert, but if this Stamina battery is really 2200 mAh, I'd expect about 4 hours approximately. I got 1.5 hours of gameplay from it. Yikes. And when it died, it didn't give me any warning; no flashing green power light. I was checking the battery indicator, it never went below 1 bar, even 10 minutes before it died.

I thought, maybe it was because it hadn't had a full charge. So I charged it again, and did another playthrough. Same results, about 1.5 hours of gameplay. What's bad is that as soon as you plug in the AC adapter & check the Battery Information, it says something like 76% when the battery's dead.

I played through a few charges worth, and got the same results. I also made sure to check to see if the battery heated up during charging, and I found no heating issues.

Then I tried out the 2200 mAh "Stamina" battery in my PSP-2001. I get about 3 hours of gameplay with my 1200 mAh PSP-2001 battery. It's a lower charge than my PSP-1001 battery, but the PSP-2000's need less power, so it basically evens out.

The "Stamina" battery gives about 2 hours of gameplay in my PSP-2001.

Some might be wondering if this battery can be used as a Service or "Pandora's" battery to downgrade a PSP's firmware. I don't hack or use homebrew on my PSPs, so I can't be sure, but I've read some reports that this battery can't be "Pandora-ized", so if you're looking for that, you may need to look elsewhere.

Like I said, I'm no battery expert, but from my findings I've come to think that this "Stamina" 2200 mAh battery is actually about 900 mAh. Definitely less than the official PSP battery (PSP-1000 & PSP-2000)

Still, it is an inexpensive battery for those looking for the cheapest alternative. Unfortunately I have to chalk this one up to "you get what you pay for".

Pros:

+very cheap, especially with free shipping.

+works in both PSP-1000 & PSP-2000 (I don't have a PSP-3000 yet so I couldn't test that model)

Cons:

-probably fake.

-About half the power of the official battery.

-battery meter inaccurate.

If you're looking for a really cheap battery, then this could be for you. But don't expect it to have the battery life of your official one. On the other hand, other than below average battery life, I haven't had any problems with it, it does work.

If interested, the battery can be ordered here:

http://www.budgetgadgets.com/-p-1752.html

Also you can use coupon code: DM5OFF14 to get a 5% discount site-wide.

Thanks for reading! I hope you found this review to be informative.

NOTE: BudgetGadgets.com sent these 2 items speficially for review. But anything posted in my review are 100% my opinions, and do not necessarily reflect those of BudgetGadets.com or anyone other than me. I do not work for, nor am I affiliated in any way with them.

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