Screen quality is something of an issue for us, bearing in mind how badly the PSP-3000 performed in this regard. The use of a wider colour gamut to enhance some PSP titles was appealing, but we weren't particularly thrilled with what looks for all the world like an interlaced display. Noticeable scanlines are visible on the screen during fast motion content, making games like Ridge Racer and Gran Turismo less fun to play as the additional artifacts tend to intrude on the action.
The good news with the E-1000 is that the screen is progressive, so the scanline problem of the 3000 model is completely gone. The wider colour gamut also appears to have gone too, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing as this led to some games looking unnaturally oversaturated when viewed on the PSP-3000's screen. However, colours on the E-1000 do appear pleasingly more vibrant than on the original 1000 model, without making things look overblown. Rather than featuring a wider colour gamut, calibration differences along with a lower gamma setting are the most likely causes here.
So, what we have here looks like a 'best of' when it comes to PSP screens. However, things aren't perfect. A dithering effect is present and seems to manifest itself as a series of noisy vertical strips across the screen, which can mainly be seen on plain backgrounds or artwork made up of single colours. There's also a noticeable screen-door effect which emphasises pixel structure more than previous PSP screens. In all fairness though, we easily rate the E-1000's screen over that of the 3000, but the 2000 Slim & Lite model perhaps offers up the best display by presenting us with the cleanest image and no interlacing/scan-lines.
