I didn’t get one, but I played around with one yesterday. I was walking down 1st Avenue and a guy who I’ve only met once, buddy of an ex-gf of mine, called out my name. He and his pals were having a drink so I stopped to chat.

I asked “is that an iPhone?” and of course he wanted to show it off.

It’s pretty damn impressive, I have to say. The menus and things pop up about as fast as the demos show, and the screen is just gorgeous- I’d underestimated how important the added resolution would be.

He had it in a hard plastic case to try and protect it a bit better, so I couldn’t quite get a good feel for its size and feel.

But overall, it was a pretty impressive unit. I read that Seattle Times review you mentioned (it’s my hometown paper after all) and had some of the same concerns, although not as much as that reviewer.

I’m enough of a techie that personally the data speed bugs me and Apple’s reputation in battery life worries me. But apparently Apple is going to be aggressive about getting feedback from their iPhone users, it’s very upgradeable, and they’ll be incorporating that feedback into newer software versions for the thing.

I think it’s a big step towards the do-everything type of device that we’ve all speculated and wanted for a long time, mostly because Apple’s done such an ingenious job of designing the look and feel and action of the interface. It’ll certainly push everyone in the field a LOT harder towards building a better device.