Turn Your PlayStation Vita into a cell phone

ArsTechnica:

Do console-quality graphics plus Skype equal mobile bliss? Not quite.

[jocomat9]

this actually the only feature that is stopping me from buying a vita. It doesn't even need to call other phones. if it just text that would be fine. I would but it

[r21]

i cant help but think that picture has the guy thinking 'hmm, this vita thing feels nice :)'

[Trenta27]

That or he wants a sandwich.

[badz149]

that's a confused face right there!

[BubloZX]

LMAO!! who acctually bought a vita to be a phone replacement? Sure they could pull it off but last time I checked this was a gaming device

[BISHOP-BRASIL]

No one's saying they brought Vita awaiting for phone call capabilities. But some of us want it there.

Personally, I have a PSP that I bought in 2008 and that I had not turned on in well over a year now, simply because there's no point in playing a handheld while at home (I have my console for that) and I don't go around with a ton of gadgets in a bottonless backpack.

I carry my phone as that what I may actually need, eventually some free time outside happens, but of course, I don't have my PSP with me, so I end up playing whatever my phones has, which is obviously not very good.

Now if I could carry only one piece of portable hardware that does quality gaming... That's the reason so many of us were excited about the long rumoured playstation phone, shame it didn't turn out very well.

[BubloZX]

Uhh dude you can always handheld game at home. Its not pointless at all, there are a ton of great handheld games I play daily and can't get on my consoles.

And the PS vita is hardly portable like most phones(my friends new Motorala razor fit within the dimension of my Vita's screen alone) so if you can actually carry that around then you most certainly could carry any smartphone alongside with it. And do you know how terrible the vita handles with 3G and games going on at once? you'd need to carry that annoying ass charger around too. I use to do the 3 gig of data for the vita but it drained my battery life way too quickly so I decided it wasn't really worth the money. I use my cell as a cell and my vita or 3ds for gaming and in doing so both my phone and vita and or 3ds/psp last all day on a single charge. But I'm not against the vita having more phone like features, its just cost wise and battery wise its better if its primary use is gaming.

[MasterCornholio]

Since you own both, hows the battery life of the Vita when compared to the 3DS?

XperiaRay

[BISHOP-BRASIL]

Hey BubloZX, I'm not disagreeing with you at all, Vita would make for a lousy phone as this article much showed, it simply wasn't designed with that in mind.

I was just answering the "who actually bought a Vita to be a phone replacement?" question.

I'm just saying, for me and for a lot of people out there, the moment we really want a portable gaming device is when we are away from our consoles and eventually happen to have some free time but at the same time we travel light, so we kind of want Vita to be a phone.

Of course I could just carry both around, but then again, why should I? Any smartphone can do gaming, and apparently, gaming devices can "do smartphone". Is that too much to ask for a combined solution? I undetstand that battery life would be a major concern, but hey, that's what forward thing and technology advance is for right? So we can have nicer things?

That's also why I talked about Playstation Phone. Xperia Play, although pretty good hardware, is lacking on the software department and that whole Playstation Certified thing is not going where most of us wanted, instead of compelling other phone/handheld makers to bring a more gaming oriented hardware, they are just making Playstation Suite (the very same platform Vita uses) available to other non-gaming buttons Sony Ericsson smartphones... And they are not adding games at a spectacular rate either, in fact, most games are thrid party mobile crap, so they kind of lost the point, we didn't want a PS phone so we could use our phones and mobile games in a PS controller, we wanted a PS phone so we could play as good as in PS but also having a phone there.

I'm just pointing, if Sony is still willing to push Playstation more into smartphone territory, there's people here willing to buy it.

@MAiKU

YES. I do have Crisis Core and did only played outside (back in the time, I was still at collage, so I had plenty of free time between classes, projects, works, etc). You guys can disagree all you want, but for me, if I'm at home, there's no point in playing in that tiny little screen with the subpar grip of that slab. It's simply not confortable. Maybe I exagerated a little by saying it's pointless, there is games worthy playing at the handheld despite of where you are, but personally I can't push myself to do it. I never played the first GOW on PSP to this very day, despite having tried multiple times adn having loved as far as I played, I simply got tired real fast and run back to console.

[sikbeta]

What it should have been...

[Hicken]

Why? Don't you already have a phone?

[GamingPerson]

Turn turn your playstation vita into a cell phone.. But can you turn your cell phone int a psVita? IMPOSSIBLE!

[Sharingan_no_Kakashi]

Already did. Skype is freaking perfect. It's a huge price you have to pay but in the long run it a heck of a lot cheaper. And you don't need 3g to service to do it, cuz there is free wifi virtually everywhere. Yes.... my vita has actually replaced my phone.

[Ju]

While that article focuses on the "cell phone" part, Skype offers a bit more: Video calling. That is why you'd want to use Skype in the first place. And this works surprisingly well, better than on my cell; less trouble than on my PC (where Skype crashes ever so often for no reason). The only lack for video calls is, that it doesn't rotate the camera and makes it a little uncomfortable to hold while walking the house - that's what I do when I talk, lol. I agree with the article, but would like to point out Skype video on the Vita works quite well.