I've been wanting to pick up a Vita since launch to play Golden Abyss and Lumines, however I already had about $200 of trade credit at my local mom n' pop game store so I've been waiting for someone to trade one in. Someone did trade one about 3 months ago, but there are some faint scratches on the screen so I balked. I went in this past Saturday and the same unit (the only Vita anything in the store) was still there. According to the clerk, nobody wants it and they can't get rid of it. Well, I got sick of waiting for a decent one and just went to Target to buy a new one since it came with Golden Abyss and the official screen protectors. Since GA is about $50 I figured it was going to be the closest I will get to a price cut without waiting awhile. I then used some Best Buy RewardZone certs to buy a 32GB card for it at BB.
I've been playing with it since then and here are some thoughts. I have rather large hands, and I am also a "gripper". I cannot use portables/controllers by handling them with my fingertips despite trying. It's just not comfortable. I have 2 problems with the Vita's form-factor:
1) The rounded ends that stick out on the sides dig into my palms. This becomes uncomfortable after about an hour. Even if I try to hold the system with my fingertips, the reliance on touch in the interface means that I can't reach it without moving my hand closer in anyway. I had the same comfort issue with the PSP-1000, but that was even worse because it had little switches built into the sides. The Vita is thankfully smooth. I saw that there were already some grip attachments at Best Buy, I might check those out. I just wish the ends were flattened or something.
2) While I love the presence of dual analog sticks, I really wish they were bigger or stuck out more. I am sure this will get better with time, but I really had a hard time aiming in GA with the tiny sticks, where it's not a problem with the PS3 pad. The thing is already not pocketable (IMO) so I don't know why they couldn't have put larger sticks on there. Regardless, Are there solutions for this?
Something else that I am curious about is the screen. The OLED screen has very good black-levels and vibrant colors, however, I find that mine has a hard time with gray (like in the backgrounds of the PSP system messages, etc.) It reminds me of plasma in the sense if you look closely, you will see a lot of "colored" noise in the gray (greens or pinks). It's not smooth like an LCD would be. Adjusting the brightness with one of these gray dialog boxes onscreen causes the colors in the gray to shift around. In fact, I don't find the brightness control to really affect the brightness all that much at all, it mainly seems to adjust the color tones. There are a few spots on the brightness slider that make the gray look more "pure" so that's what I've been keeping it on. Is this a defect with my unit or are they all like this? I've never had an OLED device before so this might be endemic to the technology like the aforementioned plasma.
