Been feeling smug lately, looking down at your friends who'd drank the Apple Kool-Aid? Convinced yourself that the phone wasn't going to be all that? That you'd wait for the second generation? ("First-generation Apple products always suck" may be the single sentence we've heard most in downtown bars these last few days.) Yeah, well, the reviews are out today, and it looks like the crazies were right.

"But even in version 1.0, the iPhone is still the most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years. It does so many things so well, and so pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles. In other words, maybe all the iPhone hype isn’t hype at all. As the ball player Dizzy Dean once said, 'It ain’t bragging if you done it.'" —David Pogue, New York Times

"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." —Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret, The Wall Street Journal

And at 3 p.m. this afternoon — that's 51 hours before the thing goes on sale — ten people were queued up in front of the Fifth Avenue Apple store. It's 92 degrees out.

Earlier: Daily Intel's coverage of the iPhone.
Related: Steve Jobs in a Box [NYM]