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iPhone "lacks features found even on the most basic phones" - review still loves it!

America's gadget reviewers have had the thing for two weeks: there are, it seems, genuine working iPhones already online. And the thing lives up to the hype. But sadly, it also falls short.

David Pogue on the New York Times reports that the phone is as good as he expected in its music playing, its emailing, its video - everything, in short, except its function as a phone.

He notes that the user interface is wonderful for browsing, and for email: but making a call "can take as many as six steps: wake the phone, unlock its buttons, summon the Home screen, open the Phone program, view the Recent Calls or speed-dial list, and select a name."

And "call quality is only average, and depends on the strength of your AT&T signal," he laments.

Battery life isn't as wonderful as Apple recently claimed, he found. You'll need to recharge your battery at least every second day, especially if you watch video.

The built-in camera is great, he says, but you need a well-lit subject. And you can't shoot video! And his complaints don't stop there: "There's no memory-card slot, no chat program, no voice dialing. You can't install new programs from anyone but Apple; other companies can create only iPhone-tailored mini-programs on the Web. The browser can’t handle Java or Flash, which deprives you of millions of Web videos."

In the US, the phone is an exclusive property of the AT&T network. Pogue marks the thing down heavily on that, saying that Consumer Reports describe that ex-Cingular network as either the worst, or next to it, in all areas.