Found it:

http://reckoning.amalur.com/en/r/faq

Are the Reckoning demo items functional? Can I actually use/wear them in-game, or are they only ornamental?
Yes, the items you unlock via the Reckoning demo are all things your Reckoning characters can equip and use. Each item does have stats and lore associated with it, but they are not intended to be the best equipment you can get.

Will the Reckoning demo items be available to all the characters I create in Reckoning, or only the first character I create?
The demo items you’ve earned will be available for every character you create in Reckoning.

Do any of the Reckoning demo items have a level restriction?
Some of the Reckoning demo items do have minor level and attribute equip requirements, however they are intended to be great beginning equipment and are leveled appropriately for that purpose. All your characters will either already meet the necessary equip requirements, or be within one level of doing so by the time you reach Gorhart, where the items are located.

Do any of the Reckoning demo items scale with my character’s level?
No, the Reckoning demo items are intended to be awesome items to help you get started in Reckoning. They’ll give you a great edge as you forge your path in Amalur, but they do not level up with your character.

Honestly, I love the approach.

Most often the unlockable pre-order items are uber-powerful and you either never use them because you don't want to ruin the early game or you can't use them until very late because they have level requirements.

Awesome. Well at least I won't have to **** with the horrible weapons that you usually are forced to fight with in the beginning.

this game is pretty fun, a little easy though. I guess I shoulda started on hard, but I'm just renting it, so I'm just gonna try and hurry up the play through.

I still haven't made it to the chest with all my stuff in it...spent all my time exploring last night and ****ing around...

I'm enjoying this, I like the variety of weapons you can use and the paths you can take with your build. The action and controls are fluid, not sure why it's getting beat up on review sites. It's a well done game, I dig it.

It got an 8/10 from Game Informer magazine but the complaints were pretty mild compared to the praise.

They weren't fond of the story ("unremarkable, forgettable"), the fact that it wasn't truly a wide-open world and that your actions didn't seem to have a lasting impact on said world, and that the varied loot apparently becomes a lot less varied late in the game.

They loved the combat and the leveling up aspects - the combat drew favorable comparisons to God of War.

A few thoughts on some things that have already been mentioned:

1. I cannot reiterate loudly enough how fluid the combat is. You can go from hammer smash, to dagger slash, to lightning bolt with amazing ease. It really makes for an interesting, dynamic feel even though it's, at its essence, just mashing buttons.
2. The unlockable Gamestop items are better than the run of the mill starting gear but they're not seriously overpowered. You'll actually probably want to replace them sooner than you think. The big drawback with the armor is that they are SET items, meaning the best of their effects are only gained when using all of them. Individually, they really aren't that great.
3. I ran into a real issue with the unlockables since I had all of the Gamestop gear plus the Shepard's stuff from the demo. I was used to using "Take All" when looting chests and did just that when I got to the unlockables chest in town. Of course, my inventory was then completely full and since there's no place to stash (that I can find) in the very first town, I was faced with selling stuff I didn't really want to sell in order to have room to keep adventuring.
4. Hard difficulty doesn't seem much harder than normal. But that might be because...
5. I'm getting MUCH better chest/loot drops on Hard than I did on Normal. I only played the area from the end of the tutorial to the 1st town once on Normal (not including the demo) and did not find any gear I wanted to instantly equip rather than sell. On 2 Hard playthroughs, I've found 4 items that were quite a bit better than what I was already using.

I'm hoping that like any other RPG.....you can purchase a house to store your shit in. The unlockable stuff is worth 0 gold.....and I know I'm not going to want to carry around all of it for the entire game.

You can buy a house to store your stuff, it explicitly states so in the game manual.

The problem is that I have yet to find one in the first town and given it's small size, I'm guessing there isn't one until you get to a bigger town.

See.....that ****ing sucks. I think what I'll do with my next character....is just grab the downloadable items that I want to use....and leave the rest in the chest until I get a house.

Yeah, I actually restarted and just left the chest unopened, since the items are cool but not all that powerful. I'm having more fun just collecting stuff.

Maybe I'll just do that. I'm not to far into the game.

I just got a house pretty early in. It's a side quest in the town with the spiders and you do a mission for a guy that wants you to go into a spider cave and kill the guy, then I let the guy live and met him back in the town and got the house.

SPOILER! ROFL

lol, if you kill the guy you won't get the house. I didn't think that would spoil anything for anybody.