At first it seemed like the iPhone would be just another smartphone that little old NZ didn't get to see. Annoying, but not the end of the world. But with iPhone hysteria going off the scale (Microsoft employees have been sighted in queues), and saturation coverage on US tech sites and mainstream media over the weekend, I am starting to get a teensy weensy bit jealous. More so when I read some of the most influential American critiques who, for the most part, say Apple's little gadget does match its hype. Here's a couple of snippets:

"The phone is so sleek and thin, it makes Treos and BlackBerrys look obese ... But the bigger achievement is the software. It's fast, beautiful, menu-free, and dead simple to operate. You can't get lost, because the solitary physical button below the screen always opens the Home page, arrayed with icons for the iPhone's 16 functions." - David Pogue, The New York Times

"iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry ...

"The iPhone's most controversial feature, the omission of a physical keyboard in favour of a virtual keyboard on the screen, turned out in our tests to be a nonissue, despite our deep initial skepticism. After five days of use, Walt -- who did most of the testing for this review -- was able to type on it as quickly and accurately as he could on the Palm Treo he has used for years. This was partly because of smart software that corrects typing errors on the fly." - Walter Mossberg and Katherine Boehret, The Wall Street Journal

The iPhone also gets dibs for smudging but not scratching; for boasting longer battery life and more internal memory (4GB or 8GB) than its competitors (1GB is the upper limit of most phones); a quick and handy web browser; clever integration of Google's mapping and street view services; a seamlessly designed universal inbox, including a BlackBerry-style 'push' email service courtesy of Yahoo; and of course iPod-style music playing ability.

The major downer is connection speed. The iPhone only ramps up to GPRS (the cellular food chain going from standard GSM to GPRS to 3G to HSDPA, aka 3.5G or '3G Broadband', which is available in the US). However, even here the iPhone wins raves for its ability to seamlessly (that word again) jump from cellular to wi-fi networks for faster and cheaper mobile broadband. I want one.

Pictured above: Spike Lee becomes one of the first people in the world to buy an iPhone, and saves a child's life in the process! Is there anything the iPhone can't do?

Read some of our more measured coverage here.