Judging only by the number of times I’ve been asked how I like my Vita and the conversation on Twitter about it, I’d say there is a lot of buzz for the Vita. When I got mine last week I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning and after having my Vita for several day I can say that I am not disappointed.

When you first power up the Vita you have to go through the normal setup process, setting time, date and things like that. In true Playstation fashion you can’t sign into your PSN account until you do an update. Because of this you have to sign in as a guest and then finish the rest of the start up process. You can’t do the update until you have done this which is a little silly. After that you update the system which takes a couple of minutes (nothing like updating the PS3 for the first time). After the update you can sign in and off you go. My Vita was about 80% charged so I could play for awhile before having to charge it again.

The interface is really nice and the touch is snappy and responsive. The icons are bubbles and looks very IOSish. You swipe up or down to scroll through the menu and hold down a bubble and they start to shake. From this point you can move icons by dragging them or delete them. There are certain apps you can’t delete (like the web browser but there are parental controls that allow you to lock it out.) Once you click on a icon a start menu appears and you have to click it to start the program. This is one thing I wish they cut out, why not go straight into the program? To exit a program click the Playstation button and it takes you out of it but it doesn’t close it. To do this you have to drag you finger from the top right corner of the screen and pull down like you are tearing off a sticker.

I had heard that load times where lengthy but I didn’t have that problem. The first time you put a game it will install the game and an icon on the screen. I’ve been playing Uncharted mostly and the controls work great, I love having the two thumbsticks. The game looks and feels like I’m playing on a PS3, the only downside I’ve found is the size. The size is great for playing games but it’s a little big to carry in your pocket. This is one thing I love about the 3DS is it fits nicely in my pocket but even with that I’m not complaining because the size is great when you are playing.

I was very excited when the Vita was announced and I have to say I am not disappointed. Hopefully this device will be supported by third party developers better than the PSP. As long as Sony has taken care of the hacking and illegal game downloads I think that they will. It’s a great platform and I am very excited about it future.

Playstation seems to drop the ball so often that it has become a running joke.  For me the latest is with the PS Vita’s first bundle that allows gamers to get the Vita a week before it’s launch date.  The idea is pretty cool but the problem that not everything was ready.  First of all if you try to use Media Go to transfer old PSP downloads the software doesn’t recognize the Vita.  Your computer will and will install the drives needed but Media Go itself does not, so you can’t transfer games using it.  The work around to this problem is use your PS3 (if you have one) to download the games and the PS3 will be able to transfer games to the Vita.

A bigger problem is the apps that Playstation advertises aren’t ready for the device yet, well at least they haven’t been released.  This includes the Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare apps.  Now I know that all of these are third party apps and are out of the hands of Sony but even Sony’s own apps aren’t available yet.  The Vita comes with several AR cards to play augmented reality games but to play these games you need to download apps that aren’t on the store yet.  This to me is a huge fail on Sony’s part.  I’m ok with the third party apps not being available right away but games that come with the system not being available is crazy.  I know what some of you are thinking, it doesn’t release until next week and they will work then, yes this is true but why do an early release then.  Why let your die hard fans get their hands on something that isn’t totally ready.  Also this has been out in Japan for several months and don’t they have the same AR cards?

In the grand sceme of things it’s not that big of a deal.  It’s cool to finally get our hands on a Vita and it is really nice.  I wouldn’t be playing the AR cards now anyway because of Uncharted, which is amazing, but they should of had this part available when the Vita shipped.

I couldn’t hardly wait to open up the Vita and get to playing but I did long enough to record this video.  I hope you guys enjoy it and send me a friends request if you have a Vita.