Everyone needs one portable gadget to carry all their music and movies. And I must go against popular opinion and say I love my PSP more than my iPod.

7. Multimedia

The PSP provides MP3, video, and image viewing with built-in speakers and a radiant 480p screen, far bigger than any iPod screen. I can then plug in my PSP to watch videos, either UMDs or MPEG-4s (just like your iPod), on my television. The larger screen even works better for reading comic books and websites. And if you’re ever bored, you can keep many flash games you find online to play on your PSP.

6. Wireless and web browsing: no extra charge

It only took six years and six generations of iPods before Wi-Fi and web browsing finally came built into the MP3 player. The PSP has had an impressive web browser for years with wireless networking to play games. The PSP had an RSS reader built-in.

5. Expandable memory

Want an more TV episodes for that long plane ride? Just have too much music for one iPod Nano. Well for the PSP, you can buy one, two, four, or eight gig memory cards giving you unlimited space for all your media. You can buy three four gig memory cards (about $40 each) and a PSP ($169) and spend less than the $299 iPod touch with eight gigs.

4. Easily replaceable batteries

So did that battery in your iPod crap out? Now you have to replace your whole iPod. Or worse, were you watching a video in the car ride to grandma’s when your battery dies? If you had a PSP, you could just switch out a new battery. Keep two around. Or three. And never worry about being without your precious music, movies and games. And you never have to wait for those annoying appointments to have college student do what you can do yourself.

3. Homebrew and accessories

While both Apple and Sony aren’t happy about random people making random stuff for their hardware, PSP has a much larger and successful homebrew community, creating eReaders, ISO loaders, original games, and GPS services with maps. One downside are the current best accessories, like the video camera and official GPS have yet to be imported to the U.S. Europe also will be getting live TV, instant messaging, and a video download service, many of which are soon to be coming to the U.S. And until that happens, I can always use Remote Play with my PS3. I might be across the country, but give me a wireless connection and I can be enjoying all the games and movies on the attached 500 gig hard drive.

2. Games

Pretty obvious, the PSP plays games. This handheld is a power house almost rivaling the home console PS2. While the console has had more misses than hits, there’s far more quality games for the system then the iPod which has, well, none. From an original Grand Theft Auto game to classic remakes of Final Fantasy and Mega Man, the PSP offers a nice assortment of value-adding games. And if those games aren’t enough, try out flash games from the web (which you can save onto your memory card) or play some free homebrew games. All the features of an iPod and a game machine. All for a …

1. Lower price

You get more features than the $300 iPod Touch for the price of an iPod Nano. And a lot more features than the iPod Nano…for the same price.

And no I did not forget the UMD movie format. UMD is a waste. But the PSP can play all your digital movie files just as well, on a wider, bigger screen than any iPod. Just wanted to remind you of that.

Every Monday, I force my opinion on you, my fearless readers, ranking the seven of something geeky.