It’s Still A Pretty Powerful Handheld
By modern standards, the PS Vita is by no means a powerhouse. As mobile-phones exponentially become more powerful with every yearly iteration, it’s tough for a static piece of hardware like a handheld console to keep up with the times. Nevertheless, with 512 MB of RAM and a supplementary 128 MB of Video RAM, the PS Vita can still hold its own and punch above its weight — for context, the PS3 shared 512MB of RAM between its GPU and CPU. It’s a more than capable piece of gaming hardware, especially considering the other handheld console competition that’s currently on the market.
A lot of the PS Vita’s power can be felt in its day-to-day multi-tasking, which is super handy as the console suspends games for you whilst you surf the PS Store or check out what your friends are up to via the Friends List app. Its UI is incredibly snappy and intuitive, too (ok, those bubbles are a little bizarre but they do their job admirably).
Long story short, the PS Vita is still no slouch in the power department, which is impressive considering the fast-paced, ever-evolving mobile market that it was born into. Games often look incredible; you just have to look at Guerrilla Cambridge’s terrific FPS PS Vita exclusive Killzone: Mercenary as evidence for this, which astonishingly runs on a modified version of its PS3 brethren’s graphics engine. If you’re in the market for a powerful handheld, then look no further than Sony’s plucky underdog handheld.