Personal Pros & Cons so far after having it for almost 2 days now:
Pros: - The tablet controller is absolutely great. I think it feels great, isn't heavy enough to make it uncomfortable, and it has become my default web browser when on the couch.
- Related to the above, Black Ops II looked great on the gamepad while my wife and I watched netflix on our main TV. I was able to get horribly thrashed in multiplayer while we watched Freaks & Geeks.
- The games I've played so far (Nintendoland, Mario U, Black Ops II) all look great.
- While it was tedious, the Wii to Wii U transfer process was pretty straightforward and painless.
- I don't know if Miiverse is necessarily a game changer, but I do at least enjoy the message board-like feature.
Cons:- Yes, like everyone mentioned, you can expect at least 45 - 60 mins for the initial firmware update.
- Navigating from the different menus and applications seem to have a 5-15 second loading time.*
- This is probably a subjective opinion, but I don't think the eShop layout is particularly great. Actually, figuring out most settings in the Wii U seems to be without much logic, and certain things like the friends list took me much longer than I anticipated to configure.
- I understand why TVii needs to be delayed, but we can't even have the youtube/hulu/amazon prime apps available individually? Furthermore, it was a bit confusing to see them on the gamepad menu screen, but only have a "coming soon" message when you select them.
It's no question by now that there have been some confusing information given to even those of us who now have the actual console on hand, and that's the source of most of my misgivings of the system so far. that being said, I see my complaints either being resolved by future firmware updates or by me having more experience using the console.
To those like tendoboy1984 who are citing the reported problems with what they're hearing about the system so far as why they're taking a wait-and-see approach, I would say it was probably a good idea for you to wait.
I'm not sure if the Wii U will catch fire the same way its predecessor did, but if tolerating a bit of slow load times while Nintendo figures out its business is the worst I experience with this, I think Wii U could become one of my favorite system's I've ever owned.
*During today's time with the Gamepad, I didn't see as long of a delay. Either it has been improved or I'm not noticing it as much.