THE REVIEWS ARE out. They’re breathless. They’re gushing. They’re compelling.

Here are some surprising, obvious, compelling and preposterous things we’ve learned…

1. The embargo

The iPhone 6 reviews were embargoed in the US until yesterday evening. Cue images of Apple heavies in white suits peering menacingly through the windows of the New York Times.

Apple lent The New York Times an iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus under the condition that a review would be not be published before Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

The Techcrunch guy meanwhile went to great lengths to disguise his iPhone 6s when he brought them to Disneyland to try them out. He used Samsung Galaxy cases. The ultimate burn.

Techcrunch Techcrunch

2. “Most exquisite mobile ever made”

Someone fetch Stephen Fry’s smelling salts.

The Guardian The Guardian

Other adjectives used by Fry include:

ravishing

devastatingly cool

utterly gorgeous

3. People are persevering with this ‘phablet’ farce

If you ever catch us earnestly using the word ‘phablet’ feel free to strike us roughly with a… er… phablet.

The Guardian The Guardian

New York Times New York Times

4. “Apple’s best phone ever”

Well, you would hope so, wouldn’t you? Otherwise what was all the bells and whistles launch/review embargo/U2 gnashing of teeth about?

Was it for this, etc….

The Telegraph The Telegraph

5. We’ll believe it when we see it

The Telegraph The Telegraph

The battery lasts a day?! What sorcery is this?!

6. But wait! More audacious battery claims!

recode.net recode.net

Burn the witch!

(The Bloomberg guy came along to rain on everyone’s parade though, delivering a devastating:

I’m sorry to report that even a big iPhone 6 doesn’t deliver an all-day charge if you’re a heavy user or in an area without strong wireless signals.

I experienced several days during the review period where I barely made it to the charger before the phone lost power.)

7. There are graphics that show how far your thumb will reach depending on how tall you are

Truly a conundrum for our time.

From Mashable:

Mashable.com Mashable.com

And the Wall Street Journal:

WSJ.com WSJ.com

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