Apple iPhone 5, Is it worth it?

For  iPhone 5 retail sales appear to be living up to the hype as Apple stores were inundated with customers ready to snap up the company's latest model.

Outside the Upper West Side Apple store in New York City store early Friday, hundreds are lined up around the block as blue-shirted Apple employees walk around the line, answering questions and handing out coffee and water.

Expectations are running high that Apple will sell tens of millions of the iPhone 5 within a few weeks, blowing past previous sales.
The early sales surge was giving already red-hot Apple shares an early boost Friday morning. Apple was up $5.17 to $703.87 in early trading.

The good: The iPhone 5 adds everything we wanted in the iPhone 4S: 4G LTE, a longer, larger screen, and a faster A6 processor. Plus, its top-to-bottom redesign is sharp, slim, and feather-light.

The bad: Sprint and Verizon models can't use voice and data simultaneously. The smaller connector renders current accessories unusable without an adapter. There's no NFC, and the screen size pales in comparison to jumbo Android models.

The iPhone 5 completely rebuilds the iPhone on a framework of new features and design, addressing its major previous shortcomings. It's absolutely the best iPhone to date, and it easily secures its place in the top tier of the smartphone universe.

The iPhone 5 is the iPhone everybody wanted since 2010, adding long-overdue upgrades like a larger screen and faster 4G LTE in a razor-sharp new design. This is the iPhone, rebooted.

The new design is flat-out lovely, both to look at and to hold, and it's hard to find a single part that hasn't been tweaked from the iPhone 4S. The iPhone 5 is at once completely rebuilt and completely familiar.