7 reviews of the original iPhone from 2007

The most remarkable thing about iPhone is what's missing: a physical dialing keypad and/or full qwerty, or traditional, keyboard. Instead, either a virtual keypad or keyboard shows up on the iPhone screen, depending on what you are doing — entering a Web address, for instance, or banging out a text message.

No stylus is provided. Your fingers control everything; you "tap," "flick" and "pinch." Finger-tapping takes getting used to. Best advice: Start typing with one finger before graduating to two thumbs. [USA Today]

Finally, you can enlarge a Web page — or an e-mail message, or a photo — by spreading your thumb and forefinger on the glass. The image grows as though it's on a sheet of latex. [New York Times]

The iPhone's iPod functions are like no iPod we've seen before — but I'd hazard a guess that they closely resemble the look of iPods to come. Without a scroll wheel to use in navigation, the iPhone's iPod features take some getting used to. It took me quite a while to figure out how to toggle into and out of Shuffle mode. (The controls appear when you do a single tap on the screen.) [Macworld]

We knew that it measures 4.5 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.46 inch deep, but it still felt smaller than we expected when we finally held it. In comparison, it's about as tall and as wide as a Palm Treo 755p, but it manages to be thinner than even the trend-setting Motorola Razr. It fits comfortably in the hand and when held to the ear, and its 4.8 ounces give it a solid, if perhaps weighty, feel. We also like that the display is glass rather than plastic. [CNN]

For any feature that requires text input, the iPhone displays an on-screen keyboard that you can toggle between QWERTY text keys and numbers/symbols. It's still no match for the hardware keyboard you get on a BlackBerry or Treo, but it certainly beats any standard cell phone keypad.

So should you buy an iPhone? Sure, if you want to own a beautifully designed phone/Internet device/music player and are willing to put up with some occasionally exasperating problems. Everyone else, especially those who already rely on a PDA phone for messaging, should probably wait. [PC World]

While the big flurry at the moment is all about the launch of the iPhone, there are consistent rumours that the iPhone Nano can't be far behind. It seems a well-calculated guess, based on the company's previous business model of popping out a beautiful gadget and then pushing cheaper and successively dinkier ones behind it, like a set of technologically-pleasing Russian dolls. But as yet, there has been no official confirmation of the timescale until the next one. [The Guardian]

Look at the iPods of five years ago. That monochrome interface! That clunky moving touchwheel! They look like something a caveman whittled out of a piece of flint using another piece of flint. Now imagine something that's going to make the iPhone look like that. You'll have one in a few years, and it'll be cheaper, too. If you're not ready to think different, then think ahead. [TIME]