I have both of these handhelds and am trying to decide which to get rid of and which to keep for emulation. The Go already has custom firmware and a 128gb SD card but it loses connection from time to time because of a poorly connected ribbon cable. The 1001 is on stock firmware and needs a new battery.

I would do the 1000, has less ram and storage but unless you have small hands it is much easier to hold. The PSP is small to begin with, the Go made it worse by putting the buttons less than an inch apart.

3000 was the best in my opinion.

Keep the 1000. Easier to find parts for. There's an IPS screen mod out for it. Could do a big battery mod. CFW is easy to put on there.

Upgrading the storage on non-GO PSPs is as easy as buying a generic microSD to ProDUO adapter.

I much prefer the form factor of the go. The lighter weight the better imo. l'd go with whichever one feels better to hold.

I love the Go but unless portability is a huge factor for you, I'd keep the 1001 instead. I mainly used the PSP Go because it fit in my pocket.

But I wonder what you mean by "keep for emulation", because PSP isn't a very good system to emulate things on. I remember even SNES games having bad slowdowns when emulating on a PSP, you might as well just buy a retro handheld than repair what you have.

I can't advise on what to keep and what to get rid of because I say "keep everything and get the parts to fix it," but with that in mind:

Bruh that ribbon cable, have you opened it up and tried to reset it? You can probably save it!

The trouble with it is, it's secured to the SD card adapter with conductive tape. I think the tape is losing its adhesion and I don't know if I want to take a stab at soldering the ribbon cable to the adapter instead.

Or maybe buy more kapton tape?