ok first up there have been reports of dead pixles on the DS as well the only difference is that nitendo will replace it if there is one dead pixel while sony requires 2 or 3. Yes the PSP probably needs a case but then so did the GBA (mine got waaaaay scratched up).
About the price? I've seen PSP's on sale over the internet for £130. Doesn't seem like much of a biggie to me. T
The battery? Most laptops only last 3 hours (less if you're using WiFi). Its about what you can expect from a product with superior processing power. And are you really going to be playing for 10 hours solidly. If you really want to keep it on while your playing you can just put it on sleep mode and the loss of power is negliable.
The thing you said about the DS being able to do most of what a PSP can do neatly cancels out LionX's arguement that the extras put him off.
Now dont get me wrong. I have owned pretty much every nintendo handheld console there is (back from the old game and watch) but the GBA's had very flawed designs.
The GBA famously had no backlit screen making it pretty much impossible to play games out of direct light. Also forced me to cover up the speakers with my right hand while playing, muffling the noise. It also had no charger meaning that if I was playing at home I would have to use rechargable batterys that lasted around 5 hours (does that playtime sound familiar?)
When I got my GBA SP I was happy to find that most of these problems had been sorted out. But nintendo had to sneak something in and helpfuly neglected to put in the headphone jack I was so used to using after my hand covered up the speakers so much with my old GBA.
Looking back at my old gameboy and the gameboy pocket I inexplicably brought. I can see that the speaker is in that same arkward posistion.
Now Im not saying that the DS has any of these flaws. I wouldnt know as I've never used one but Im saying that nintendo havnt had the best track record when it comes to desing in my opinion.