I have in my hand a PS Vita...

That will preserve peace in my heart for a good few years to come.

Given that ordering one online would incur an annoying delay, I legged it down to my local retail park, which has an ASDA, GAME and a HMV. ASDA had the cheapest individual prices, but no Uncharted. GAME staff were trying to wrest my Xbox off me before letting buy one with some stupid bundles and trade-ins but it looked impossible to just buy a Vita without some sort of back alley trading going on, no wonder the company is in trouble.

On the other hand, HMV had a demo unit, some friendly staff and a decent bundle (The Vita and Uncharted for £229). So I put my money down there and picked up an 8GB memory card (card is the wrong word having seem them in the flesh, I feel "memory fluff" should be the new phrase) and a free pre-order pack by asking nicely.

Getting it home, I unwrapped it, used my handy microscope to put the memory card in, figured my way around the firmware update/PSN account loop of hell (just tap Do Not Use and enter your date of birth to escape). Apart from instantly falling in love with the game boxes, clearly the screen is the big sell here. It is simply gorgeous and sucks you in.

I'm not too fond of all the "Please Wait" activity icon when waiting for stuff to happen, this is supposed to be a light-speed fast console, waiting shouldn't be an option, but I hope future firmware updates will fix that. Oh, and having the screen go blank during a firmware update is a big no-no, I wonder how many people will trash their machines resetting them in the middle of an update.

Other than that, delighted... lets get on with the gaming