Anything from Sony TV’s to the original PSP and of course the PS3 all used the XrossMediaBar interface and now we have the PS Vita which uses its own interface called the LiveArea. This is a complete touch based interface and has a few different sections that we will cover now.
This is the lock screen, it is pretty straight forward and it displays the time and date. To unlock it you simply swipe from the top right to the bottom left, imagine a page being changed in a book. This type of swiping will be used even more throughout the menu and it’s mainly used to close applications and games.
This is probably the most important area of the PS Vita as it’s where you launch the apps and games, it is customizable as you can arrange the icons however you want and you can customize the wallpapers and you can do this for each page.
When launching an app or game you will be presented with either a continue page or start page, the latter being if the application or game isn’t already running. They are identical in every way except for that simple fact that one says continue and one says close. This is also the screen you use to close apps and games the same way you unlock the lock screen.
Now the settings menu is somewhat basic layout and is straight forward. This is exactly all it needs to be and it works. The layout is similar to that of the XrossMediaBar layout in terms of categories and style.
The above application is the PlayStation Store app and this shows that certain apps will and can display certain information in the normally empty sections. This can be anything related to the game or app and this case the prices on some games and possibly current deals.
The PlayStation store app is again nice a simple and navigation is simple. Navigation is identical to the rest of the system and you can return to the main menu at anytime by hitting the PlayStation button on the console.
Okay, that is it for the menu system. It’s as straight forward as it gets. Performance is pretty solid and responsive. It is a pity that you cannot navigate any other way other than using the touch screen as that would have been nice.
Now let’s move onto the camera for both photos and video quality.
