  In this paper, we provide the mathematical framework to evaluate and quantify
the performance of wireless systems, which employ beamforming, in the presence
of hardware imperfections at both the basestation and the user equipment. In
more detail, by taking a macroscopic view of the joint impact of hardware
imperfections, we introduce a general model that accounts for transceiver
impairments in beamforming transmissions. In order to evaluate their impact, we
present novel closed form expressions for the outage probability and upper
bounds for the characterization of the system's capacity. Our analysis reveals
that the level of imperfection can significantly constraint the ergodic
capacity. Therefore, it is important to take them into account when evaluating
and designing beamforming systems.
