I think I overpaid a bit for it, but I’ll explain:

I was hanging out with one of my friends the other day, and we stopped at Another Castle Video Games, a game store that I’d been to before, but hadn’t gone to in a while, and since we were in the area, I figured I’d stop by in my hunt for a Vita, since my visits to game stores in Arizona proved fruitless.

So we stopped in the store and I remembered “Oh, right! I wanted a Vita…”, so I went to check out the consoles, and they had not 1, not 2, but three Vitas, all of them 1000 models. I was looking for an 1100 model with the 3G module though (for modding reasons), and luckily, one of them was an 1100 model, and it was the same price as the others.

So, even though it was above market price, I had that hanging-out-with-friends hype and just… well, bought it.

Cleaning it

When I got home with the Vita, it was actually dirtier than I thought. I will say Another Castle Video Games kinda sucks with consoles and stuff because it doesn’t seem like they really clean them.

You can see the smudges and grime on it.

So I took it upon myself to take it apart and do a somewhat deep clean of the input areas on the controller, and wiped down the exteriors as well, and it certainly made a lot of difference.

Look how clean it is now!

The back still has some deep scratches and scuffs, and the front is the same but much less worse, but overall, the system is in pretty decent condition.

Using it (kinda)

It was really surreal powering it on and seeing the UI again and hearing the super nostalgic music that reeks of the early 2010s. It’s so awesome!!!!!!!

Though after setup, that was sort of it because without a memory card (didn’t feel like paying 30-something dollars for the 8GB memory cards they had there), there’s not much you can do on these original models, since they come with absolutely NO internal storage to download games on. Because of that, earlier today, I bought a PSVSD (which was the reason I got an 1100 model) and it should be coming in a bit, since it’s shipping from Mexico.

In the meantime though, I tried some things, like going on Welcome Park to try out the many features of the Vita, or going on nick64.me on the Vita browser!

It... sorta works?

Conclusion

But yeah, overall, I’m really happy I got a Vita now, and hopefully I can get my hands on the PSVSD adapter soon so that I can finally play games on the Vita. But for now, it’s gonna sit on my desk, and every once in a while, I’ll turn it on, play 2 minutes of Welcome Park, and turn it back off lol. I’ll write a new post once the adapter arrives.