Wall Street Journal posts world’s first iPhone hands-on review

The wait is over. The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg (writing in partnership with Katherine Boehret) has just posted the first hands-on review of Apple’s iPhone.

The WSJ pair had an iPhone for two weeks, giving plenty of time to gather an in-depth impression of what the handset has to offer. Their headline conclusion, however, was…

Our verdict is that, despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer. Its software, especially, sets a new bar for the smart-phone industry, and its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions.

…which sounds pretty much as we’d expected (and hoped). AT&T’s dog-slow non-3G data network comes under fire, suggesting that wi-fi is really where the iPhone will be at home, at least in the States. The iPhone’s lack of instant messaging, video recording, support for Flash, no on-board game, and inability to access the iTunes store directly were all rightly criticised too. However, battery life was found to be impressive, even with wi-fi access left switched on.

The final hurdle will be, of course, software stability, once thousands of handsets are in use. If iPhone makes it through the launch period without major reports of crashes and other technical issues, then after months of waiting Apple’s new ship will finally be launched.

To read all of Mossberg and Boehret’s conclusions from their iPhone test, click here to view the full, in-depth article on the WSJ.

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