Other touchscreen phones have split opinion in the Absolute Gadget offices, to a degree that makes drunken football fanatics look like the best of mates. Half of us abhor them, while our beloved editor is willing to trample over his own mother in order to hang onto the HTC Touch [Sorry mum - Ed].

The iPhone promises to be different, however, as its large 3.5-inch display offers an intelligent onscreen keypad that can be used with your fingers rather than a stylus, and a unique multi-touch user interface.

The menu is logically laid out, with a single hardware button on the bottom of the iPhone to return to the home page. Zooming on photos, web pages or documents is done with your finger and thumb – pinching them together zooms out, and pushing them away from each other zooms in. Add to this a scroll function operated by a simple swipe of a digit, and it really couldn’t be easier or quicker to navigate.

That you don’t have to press a button to rotate the screen between landscape and portrait mode is also impressive – simply turn the iPhone onto its side and the screen rotates automatically, which is great when you’re using it as a camera. To this end, there’s a 2-megapixel sensor built-in, with a tiny lens on the rear of the phone. Photo quality was good, although there’s a big delay between pressing the button and anything happening.

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