The New York Times' David Pogue, the Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg, and USA Today's Ed Baig, the Holy Trinity of Apple's marketing department, all received the phone about two weeks ago. (Most other reviewers, including ours, will have to wait with everyone else to buy one Friday morning.) All three reviewers liked the first-generation iPhone, and they all like the second generation even better.

(The folks at our sister publication PC World New Zealand lived with a new iPhone 3G for a short time; they also have slightly mixed impressions, but generally liked the phone.)

Pogue's bottom line: "So the iPhone 3G is a nice upgrade. It more than keeps pace with advancing technology, and new buyers will generally be delighted."

Mossberg concludes: "If you've been waiting to buy an iPhone until it dropped in price, or ran on faster cell networks, you might want to take the plunge, if you can live with the higher service costs and the weaker battery life."

Baig is more effusive: "... this handheld marvel has no equal among consumer-oriented smartphones."

Mixed in with the raves are a fair number of complaints, however.

The 3G network: Mossberg says downloads were three to five times faster on the 3G iPhone than on the standard iPhone. Baig accepts Apple's claims that the new phone is twice as fast as the old version; loading popular Web sites took 10 to 30 seconds, he says. But all three reviewers complain about holes in AT&T's 3G coverage, despite the fact that they're all based in and around New York. Imagine what the coverage will be like in rural Iowa.

Actually, David Pogue did more than imagine. He points out that, according to AT&T's 3G coverage map, "in 16 states, only three cities or fewer are covered; 10 states have no coverage at all." And you guessed it, Iowa is one of them.

Mossberg says he found problems even in Manhattan: "In New York City, riding in a taxi along the Hudson, one important call was dropped three times on the new iPhone. Finally, I borrowed a cheap Verizon phone and got perfect reception."