It really pays to be a respected voice. Walt Mossberg, of The Wall Street Journal fame, scored a review unit of the Apple iPhone last June 11. Meaning that before the June 29 launch date arrives, he'll have a review ready. Probably by June 25.

It's a given that many people will take what he writes seriously, since he's proven to be a balanced and insightful voice in the speed over accuracy oriented tech commentary industry. It's also good that Mossberg gave a speech right after he got his iPhone. So some lucky college leaders got to hear his first impressions of the smartphone in person:

"I don't know whether I'll give it a good review or not," he said, noting that he will use the phone for the next couple of weeks before writing his review. "I can already see some things I don't like about it. I see some other things that I do like a lot about it."

And yes, he also understands that the iPhone's virtual keyboard could be an issue:

"They are claiming that through clever software they have figured out a way for this to be actually far more accurate and efficient than you think it will be, and I'm testing that proposition," he said. "And I can tell you that in the first hour it works a little better than I thought, but I'm still not sure it works as well as a regular keyboard - and the first hour is not a very fair test, so I'm going to keep going at it."

I for one can't wait for his review to come out! Thanks to Gadgets on the Go for the heads-up.