With Friday’s iPhone 3G launch coming around soon, more news about the phone roams the web.

• The reviews are in - David Pogue (NY Times), Walt Mossberg (WSJ), and Ed Baig (USA Today) all published their iPhone 3G reviews today, with most talking about the drastic speed improvements, but that it’s not a need-to-buy due to iPhone 2.0 being available for all iPhone users. Mossberg and Baig have video and written reviews, while Pogue sticks with the classic written review.

• Hands-on pictures - With this release less secretive and more like a normal phone, getting pictures of iPhone 3G before launch day was bound to happen. Early today, a Portuguese site posted some unboxing photo’s of the phone. Around the net, other users posted pictures of seeing the phone in stores. Recently, the Boy Genius Report posted some high quality unboxing pictures of the phone. BGR’s server isn’t doing to well, so check out Gizmodo’s mirror gallery. Also, some AT&T stores apparently have demo units out to look at, so call your local AT&T store at let us know in the comments what happened.

• Activation details from Apple exec  - Senior VP of Retail, Ron Johnson, told Bloomberg that activation should only take 10-15 minutes and store employees will take about 30 customers at a time from the lines. We also learned that you will need to have your credit card, social security number, and ID in order to buy the phone. Online purchases will NOT be available due to the in-store only activation.

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