I work at a game publisher, so we've had the Vita for a while now. Finally got my hands on it for a few hours yesterday (people are practically fighting over it) so I've jotted down my thoughts here:

I'm reminded of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, big slab of a smartphone that it is (though this is much larger).

Specifically, I spent some time playing with the UI and functions, then jumped into Blazblue and a couple other Japanese titles. The new display is VERY high resolution and performance-wise hardware does appear to live up to what was shown at past conferences.

The placement of the face buttons is a little too close to the analog sticks, and I found my thumb covering the speakers very often, unfortunately.

Mine had wi-fi enabled, but unfortunately I didn't have a chance to test any online features.

I work at a game publisher, so we've had the Vita for a while now. Finally got my hands on it for a few hours yesterday (people are practically fighting over it) so I've jotted down my thoughts here:

I'm reminded of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, big slab of a smartphone that it is (though this is much larger).

Specifically, I spent some time playing with the UI and functions, then jumped into Blazblue and a couple other Japanese titles. The new display is VERY high resolution and performance-wise hardware does appear to live up to what was shown at past conferences.

The placement of the face buttons is a little too close to the analog sticks, and I found my thumb covering the speakers very often, unfortunately.

Mine had wi-fi enabled, but unfortunately I didn't have a chance to test any online features.

Hows the back touch, does it fell natural?

So was it a good experience aside from the clumped upp buttons?

Just a couple questions. Do you like the UI? Does the screen look much better in person? I know someone who got to fool around with one and they said trailers don't do it justice.

Could Sony have a decent cheap tablet on their hands if they open it up to apps?

@Elbon: The back touch panel works well enough when I tried it, but it remains to be seen how well apps/games will take advantage of it.

@niko555: It's not a perfect device but I was very impressed.

@msavo: Yes, I forgot to elaborate on the Vita UI. It's pretty obvious they took lessons from smartphone/tablet operating systems - touch screen interface is smooth and responsive, and the device can have multiple applications open at the same time. You can very easily pause a game to swap between them, then go back to playing whenever you want.

The display is very impressive up close. I don't know the specs off the top of my head but it definitely suits next-gen portable titles like Uncharted. For 2D games like Blazblue, it was just overkill.

@endaround: That remains to be seen - while the interface appears quite robust, there are so many factors that go into the success of a tablet that I don't think I'm fully informed to comment on. Any new contenders would be hard pressed to go up against established platforms like Android, iOS, and Windows. Plus Sony is not doing so well these days thanks in large part to Samsung.

How's the battery life?

@McGhee said:

How's the battery life?

Well, battery life details have gone public recently so you don't need to ask me: http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2011/12/31/playstation-vita-battery-life-hours-length-revealed.htm

But if you want to know whether it lives up to advertised times, I didn't use it away from the charger long enough to find out. It's the office Vita, not mine (sadly) :P

The Vita is backwards compatible with all digital PSP games out of the box, correct?

@Hector said:

The Vita is backwards compatible with all digital PSP games out of the box, correct?

That's correct, digital PSP games through PSN. But you didn't really need me to tell you that.

I don't have firsthand experience with that, however, since it hasn't gone live in the US yet.