Talkman Travel was released in the US today and promises to be an interesting experiment for Sony.

According to the Sony promo, the Talkman Travel

* serves as an interactive pocket tour guide
* provides a list of roughly 150 pre-selected phrases tourists are likely to use on their vacations
*contains pre-selected photos archives …accompanied by detailed descriptions of their significance.

Can the functionality of the software impress adult travelers enough to excite them to include the PSP in their “must haves” for travel? Will traveling business Dad’s be tempted to swipe their kids PSP to test this program out?

Hmm … well the “pick up lines” that are included in the program suggests that Sony are targeting the traveling playboy (or playboy hopefuls)…so maybe not.

But the question that we feel compelled to ask is:

Is the jet seting playboy likely to be a PSP-toting traveler? or is Sony hoping to capture a whole new market segment (a la Nintendo Wii)?

These puzzles aside, if the Talkman Travel is as useful as the promotions suggest, it could be well worth trying out - at least, if you are heading for Paris, Rome or Tokyo which are the only cities the software targets.

Frankly the crew at Bitfood all agree that the graphics are disappointingly plain and unattractive. Hopefully Sony will upgrade them if the software proves popular!