I’m a bit of a gadget/gaming freak. I’ve owned all the consoles from the last 3 generations, I’ve owned tablets, smartphones, gaming handhelds, everything you could think of (though I’ve never dived into cameras at all). That said, I got a Vita just because I wanted to mess around with it. When I had a PSP (one of the 1st gen ones), I ran homebrew on it and ran emulators and custom apps. Didn’t really get into playing backups on it at all, but it was fun to mess around and toy with a system that wasn’t meant to be toyed with.
The Vita hasn’t been hacked to run homebrew yet (well it sort of has, but not enough to try it out), I already feel like it was worth the $250 price tag I payed for it. I also got Little Deviants just to mess with all the AR/touch features (from what I see, that’s basically the only reason to get that game), and a 4gb memory card.
The OLED screen looks amazing when doing pretty much anything. Really vibrant and colors range is fantastic. I’m not sure how I feel about the “bubble” menu yet, but it works for what’s on it. I feel like Sony could update it with a more appealing look in an update. The back touchscreen takes some getting used to, but I don’t think it deserves all the negative attention it gets. It works for what it does, and presents some unique control opportunities.
Download games on the PSN from the device is simple and easy. You can download games that you already bought on your PS3 right to the Vita. The 2 PSP games I got (Crush and Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles) run great and even have filtering options to smooth the textures at higher resolution (just like the PS2/3 have). Trophies/Achievements work the same way as the PS3.
And that’s….. pretty much it. I know there’s 2 cameras and multiplayer and more, but I didn’t really buy a gaming device for a camera. I got it to play games, and for that, it’s great and I recommend trying it out.