The initial round of iPhone reviews have started tricking in from the largest news publications in the country, and they’re very favorable.

No real new information about features (that hasn’t been widely publicized prior) is coming from these reviews, except that:

  • The camera’s actually really nice
  • EDGE can be annoyingly slow, and AT&T’s network / voice compression for voice can be in the low range of tolerable in spots.
  • You can’t use songs as ringtones ( /happydance! this is a negative? )

All of the reviews generally agree that the phone actually comes really close to living up to the unprecedented level of hype preceeding it, and for the first generation of what appears to be an industry-shaking product, it’s extremely solid.

I’ll forego the bullet points and just link the reviews. Mossberg and Pogue are almost always inclined to give Apple marks just for showing up on anything (love both of their work, but it’s the truth), however the other two appear to be neutral, and all four echo the same statements.

David Pogue, New York Times

Steven Levy, Newsweek

Edward Baig, USA Today

Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal