PSP pixel peeves proliferate

From the Dept. of We Tried to Warn You, Sony user forums are already starting to fill up with laments about PlayStation Portables with dead pixels and other screen defects.

The PSP's Japanese launch was accompanied by scattered reports of glitchy screens and Sony indifference to the defects. U.S. consumers can pretty much intuit the same from reading Page 13 of the instruction manual:

"Red, blue or green spots (bright spots) or black spots (dark spots) may appear in certain locations of the LCD screen. The appearance of such spots is a normal occurrence associated with LCD screens and is not a sign of a malfunction."

Translated, that means Sony and its retail friends get to decide when a PSP screen is defective enough to merit replacement. Clerks at Sony's PlayStation store in San Francisco, for example, appeared to be fairly generous with replacement requests Thursday, but results may vary with other retailers and Sony's customer support phone line.