Since I was foolish enough to wake an hour after preorders began, I won't be receiving my iPhone 5 until October 5. Fortunately, there's no lack of excellently written reviews.

So far, they have been overwhelmingly positive.

Harry McCracken, Time:

The bottom line, in case it isn’t clear already: The iPhone 5 is one terrific smartphone. Ignore the naysayers — even without any awesome technological breakthroughs, it’s a sizable improvement on the iPhone 4S. For many upgraders, LTE alone will be worth the price of admission.

He does a great job of comparing it to the Samsung Galaxy S III:

In other words, it boils down to a basic decision: features or polish? Only you can decide what’s important to you. It’s obvious which one Apple cares most about — and the iPhone 5 is the most artful, pleasing expression of its priorities yet.

John Gruber, Daring Fireball:

The iPhone remains the flagship of Apple’s entire product line. It exhibits not merely the highest degree of fit and finish of any smartphone, but the highest degree of fit and finish for anything Apple has ever made. When first you hold it — where by you I mean “you, who, like me, is intimately familiar with the feel and heft of an iPhone 4 or 4S” — you will be struck by how light it feels, yet in a premium, not chintzy way. Within a week, it will feel normal, and your old iPhone 4/4S will feel like a brick.

If you're in a hurry, The Wirecutter has posted a compilation of the best bits of the various reviews, with a focus on information not just regurgitated from Apple.