Reviewers: IPhone flawed, but it's still a breakthrough

Apple Inc.'s iPhone is a "beautiful and breakthrough" mobile device that lives up to the hype.

That's the word from reviewers who praised the software and design of Apple's melded mobile phone and iPod media player. The iPhone's strengths outweigh its spotty network service and price of as much as $600, they said.

"Despite some flaws and feature omissions, the iPhone is, on balance, a beautiful and breakthrough handheld computer," Walt Mossberg, technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, said in a review yesterday. "Its clever finger-touch interface, which dispenses with a stylus and most buttons, works well, though it sometimes adds steps to common functions."

Mossberg, USA Today's Edward Baig, and David Pogue, a columnist for the New York Times, all said one of the iPhone's main drawbacks was its exclusive tie to AT&T Inc., which delivers inconsistent coverage. AT&T's network ranked last or second-to-last in providing a signal in 19 out of 20 major cities, Pogue said, citing a Consumer Reports survey.

AT&T, which has a multiyear license to distribute the phone in the United States, is selling the product with a two-year service plan. Prices for the plans are $60 to $220 a month, AT&T, of San Antonio, Texas, said.

The iPhone relies on AT&T's Edge service, which lags behind AT&T's fastest so-called third-generation, or 3G, data networks. While the Edge network failed to match the broadband data speeds home users may be accustomed to, Baig said the iPhone was still a "glitzy wunderkind worth lusting for."

"Apple has delivered a prodigy - a slender fashion phone, a slick iPod, and an Internet experience unlike any before it on a mobile handset," Baig wrote yesterday.

Pogue concurred, although he took Apple to task for failing to include chat software. He also said many users would prefer tapping out messages on Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry, rather than on the iPhone's touch screen.

"Even in version 1.0, the iPhone is still the most sophisticated, outlook-changing piece of electronics to come along in years," Pogue wrote. "It does so many things so well, and so pleasurably, that you tend to forgive its foibles."

Mossberg identified several, including the lack of games and customers' inability to use songs stored on the phone as ringtones.

"It isn't for the average person who just wants a cheap, small phone," he said. "But, despite its network limitations, the iPhone is a whole new experience and a pleasure to use."

Apple will begin selling the iPhone tomorrow at 6 p.m. in each U.S. time zone through its 162 stores. AT&T will offer the handset through 1,800 company-owned stores.