iPhone gets a cool reception

While Londoners and Brummies queued around the corner, people in the Black Country and Staffordshire were less inclined to brave the cold for this year's must have gadget – the iPhone.

Only 20 people huddled around Carphone Warehouse and the o2 shop in Wolverhampton last night, nothing like the hysteria of the capital.

Stores around the region opened at 6.02pm especially for gizmo enthusiasts to get their hands on one, for the hefty fee of £269.

Staff at the shops in Dudley Street in the city were handing out sandwiches, bottles of water and even gel-filled hand warmers to the small crowds.

One of the first in the queue at Carphone Warehouse was 35-year-old Gurdip Chima, pictured, from Penn.

He said: "I've only been waiting since 5pm. It's a brilliant design and it's got everything I want. I'm pleased the queues aren't big. I hear they're a lot larger in Birmingham." Nick Hill, aged 18, from Bushbury, said: "It's the latest thing. It's the iPod combined with wireless internet I'm most interested in."

Abdul Halam, aged 22, said: "I've really been looking forward to the iPhone going on sale."

Carphone Warehouse manager Debs Gulliver, who has been in the Wolverhampton shop for one month, said: "We've ordered in 160 units so we expect to be selling some Saturday morning as well.

"It's a very cold night in Wolverhampton and it's the true enthusiasts who are out for it tonight."

Five people were waiting for the iPhone at the Carphone Warehouse on the Crossley Retail Park in Kidderminster.

Headteacher of Lickhill Primary School at Stourport Calne Edginton-White was waiting with her son Benjamin to buy one as a present for his 19th birthday on Thursday. The gap year student is currently working at the school.

Mrs Edginton-White said: "He is always developing new uses for information and communication technology at school and this might help him."

In Cannock, Apple fan Lee Beck took up his spot outside the Carphone Warehouse store in Market Hall Street at 1.30pm to ensure he would be first through the door.

The 23-year-old credit manager from Rowan Grove, Burntwood, set his watch by the Apple clock to get through the door at exactly 6.02pm and waited on a chair listening to his iPod.

Around five people waited outside the doors of Lichfield's o2 store and around 20 people waited outside o2 in the Guildhall Shopping Centre in Stafford.

The iPhone is expected to be one of the biggest selling Christmas gifts despite criticism of its two megapixel camera, with no flash, and its reliance on wi-fi hotspots for quick internet access.