The batteries of Sony’s newly announced “NGP” cannot be changed, purportedly in an effort to stymy pirates who previously used the battery to hack the original PSP models.
The unit is as stylishly designed as it is
sealed tight:
One method of hacking the copy protection on the original PSP to enable piracy involved the use of specially modified batteries (the batteries contain additional circuitry as well as the actual battery) – the sealed battery of the NGP is suspected to be part of an effort to make such hardware hacks more difficult.
The combination of
a”4-5 hour” battery life and the inability to change the batteries seems unlikely to be well received – and if the 3DS is any guide, a recharge time of some hours can be expected, making the device rather less portable than might be hoped.