iPhone 5 Reviews Released ⇥ 9to5mac.com

The embargo has lifted, and 9to5 Mac has collated all of the early reviews for your convenience. The reaction seems to be overwhelmingly positive, but that’s often the case with the earliest reviews. It’s worth waiting to see what it’s like to live with every day for, like, two weeks.

Brian Lam has written on The Wirecutter after doing a great job sifting through the reviews to find the criticisms and things you won’t see in Apple’s marketing material.

But if you read both of those collections, you’ll note a few names missing. It turns out that The Verge, Macworld, and Ars Technica all did not get embargoed iPhone 5 review units, at least according to Jason Snell and Jacqui Cheng. Very odd.

Update: And goddammit, MG Siegler stole my bit:

This is without question the phone Batman would use.

The rest of Siegler’s review is good, but goddammit.

Also, John Gruber just posted his review, and it assuages my biggest concern:

When first you hold it — where by you I am presuming you are well-accustomed to the feel and heft of an iPhone 4 or 4S — you will be struck by how lightweight it feels, yet in a premium, not chintzy way. Within a week, it will feel normal, and your old iPhone 4/4S will feel like a brick.

I’m not getting an iPhone 5 (waiting for next year’s model as my 4S is still going strong), but it’s good to know that the apparently lighter metal back doesn’t make it feel cheap.

Update 2: Nilay Patel of The Verge hints that they might have a review unit after all, and are going to post their story tomorrow.