People who had their hands on an iPhone 5 for the last week are publishing their reviews tonight and we have to say these are probably the most overwhelmingly positive reviews we've read for any gadget.
MG Siegler at TechCrunch writes, "The iPhone 5 shines in just about every conceivable way," adding, "I really do believe this is the best iPhone upgrade that Apple has done yet."
CNET's Scott Stein review says this is the "iPhone we've always wanted," and "It's absolutely the best iPhone to date, and it easily secures its place in the top tier of the smartphone universe."
What makes it so great?
Apple added LTE, the faster wireless connection, and Siegler says, "the iPhone 5 is now fast as hell." Walt Mossberg of All Things D says the iPhone 5's connection speed is ten times as fast as last year's iPhone 4S.
David Pogue of the New York Times says, "The camera is among the best ever put into a phone."
While a lot of people who only saw photos of the iPhone 5 thought it was boring, or not much of an upgrade everyone who reviewed it thinks it's a fantastic upgrade.
Pogue writes, "The new phone, in all black or white, is beautiful. Especially the black one, whose gleaming, black-on-black, glass-and-aluminum body carries the design cues of a Stealth bomber."
CNET's Stein says, "you're going to be shocked at how light this phone is." Nearly every reviewer mentioned that it's so light it disappears in your pocket. Despite being light weight, it doesn't feel cheap like Android phones, say all the reviewers.
One of the long-time knocks on the iPhone is that it's great for just about everything but being a phone. That appears to be a thing of the past with the iPhone 5. Using a Verizon iPhone 5, Mossberg reports, "voice calls I made on the iPhone 5 were clear, better than in the past. I had no dropped calls."
There are almost no complaints, and when there are complaints they seem almost forced. Pogue, for instance, is upset Apple has a new charging cord. While that's certainly a pain for people who have owned many Apple gadgets through the years, it's not really a knock on the phone.
Walt Mossberg doesn't like Apple Maps, but not because they're inaccurate, but because, "they tend to default to a more zoomed-in view than Google's, making them look emptier until you zoom out."
Also, no one likes the fact that Apple doesn't have transit maps. That's something Apple says it will address with third-party applications.
One thing that's neither bad nor good is Apple's bigger screen. Some people like it, some people don't notice it. No one has anything bad to say about it.
After reading all of these reviews, it's hard not to be excited about the iPhone 5. Apple has knocked the cover off the ball with this phone. Or as Siegler put it, "This is the smartphone nearly perfected."
unbelievable. 
