Is there that much of a difference between the two? or is it just a different shape? Any info is appreciated.

Day and night. Get the SP.

A rec from you, I will definitely be getting the SP, thanks. This should work wonders on a 11 hour flight to Hawaii, hopefully my wife won't get pissed off because it will be our honeymoon.

I have both.. and they both have their plus and minus.. but overall I prefer the SP because...

I put an afterburner in my GBA but I still prefer the SP's screen.. It's just sharper and more evenly lit. If the GBA is not lit then there's no contest, I would prefer the SP by a *huge* margin...

I prefer the sound from the SP over the regular GBA too... It sounds more detailed.. except some people will hate the SP because it lacks a headphone jack..(I obviously don't use a headphone while playing)

The screen is naturally protected from scratches by the fold over design of the SP while theres hella scratches all over my GBA One would argue that since the SP is also more compact it is also more portable..

Now, here are my gripes about the SP....

The battery design on the GBA is better because it is not proprietary.. I can just pop in some fresh or aftermarket rechargable AA's where the SP I have to buy another $pecial Nintendo $$ batterypack.. battery life is about the same for both...

Sometimes when I play for too long my hands do get cramped while playing the SP.. I have to remember to stretch.. My hands are average sized..

--mike

The SP is far superior. The lit screen makes a world of difference, and the battery, though proprietary, lasts a long, long time even with the light on. It also comes out of the box fully charged. I can see there being problems when the batteries start wearing down, though. You have to buy an accessory to allow headphone jacks.

The negatives: it is a little cramped, especially on games that use the shoulder buttons a lot... And although the screen won't get scratched up as much, the case itself will (at least my silver one shows scratches much more readily than my original GBA).

I got myself a GBA and I don't play it now. I played it like 3 times and after a hour it makes my hands hurt to bad. I don't see how I could play the SP for more then two mins being as it's so small. If you have a GC get yourself that GBA player add-on.

Opps I did not add jack **** to what you asked uhhhhh well at least you can be happy in knowing what I think now.

God I'm so damn cool and badass.

I have both having gotten them both on release day. I still keep my old GBA with me on planes and such in case the batteries die in my SP. Tough to recharge them on a plane...

The old GBA is actually pretty good on planes anyway with the overhead light.

You go neiname!


The SP is easier to hide from the wifey, but the light is bright. So make SURE she's asleep. And if she catches you just tell her you're ordering drinks with your snazzy new PDA.

My GF has already said HELL NO to any kind of video game on our honeymoon.

She already has but it's an 11 HOUR FLIGHT!!!!! A man needs a Gameboy...

I had a regular GBA and paid $85 more to upgrade to the SP. That tells you something.

I have a SP question. After charging the battery up, how many hours of gameplay do you get before its depleted again?

approx. 10 hrs.

the new black gba sp coming out sept. 9. is your silver sp, the paint is comming off?

~10 hours without the light. ~8 with the light. ~7 with an Action Replay.

Extra rechargable batteries for the SP are about $20 with shipping. http://store.nintendo.com/webapp/wcs...ProductDisplay
You could charge up an extra one for a long flight and just switch it out when the first one runs out.

I have a silver sp. It's not that the paint is coming off too easily (though it is coming off one corner), it's that you can see scratches much more easily than on the clear plastic of my glacier GBA.

I have a question about battery life... does turning the sound down make the battery last longer?

That flight is precisely why I bought an SP, and the SP made the flight bearable. I basically finished the newest Castlevania game on the trip.

What does she expect you to do for those 11 hours, talk to her? Geesh... Women!

For all the men in this thread...

Theoretically it should since sound is a type of energy but in the real world I have no idea. I doubt it make much of a difference.

I hope I don't offend anyone by saying this, but it sounds to me that both of your wives are way too controlling and irrational. It's an 11-hour flight and you're certainly not gonna talk to her for all 11 hours, so I see nothing wrong with bringing a GBA along. If she can't accept such sound logic, cancel the wedding.

You are clearly not married.

Hey, if you guys don't mind giving into your wives on every little thing, that's cool with me. IMO though, a relationship should be built on equal footing - none of this "wife makes demands, man automatically agrees" crap. If you were to play your GBA for all 11 hours of the flight, wifey would have a point. However, I see nothing wrong with bringing a few games along when the wife is sleeping, reading, or whatever. There's no way you're gonna talk to her for all 11 hours. Any sane man or woman would realize that. But if you want to give in and suffer through a dull flight where you're bored out of your skull, be my guest. My point is that if the wife cannot see the logic in her man bringing along a little something to do for parts of the flight, she's way too controlling, demanding, and unreasonable. No offense intended, of course - just my two cents on male/female relations.

About the gba sp's battery, didn't they release a better longer handling battery over at Japan, did that never make it here?

It's all right. It's okay. Here's twenty bucks in change for your two cents. It's not that we "give in" to our SOs. In my case the honeymoon is still a long way off so we haven't really "discussed" it yet. And no one claimed that women weren't controlling demanding and unreasonable.

You never answered the question. Are you married?