Seacoast customers line up at 1:30 a.m. for iPhone 5 - Seacoastonline.com

Upgraded gadget draws crowd to Portsmouth store

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Nineteen-year-old University of New Hampshire students Kyle Willis, left, and Zack Meisner arrived at 1:30 a.m. at the Verizon store on Woodbury Avenue in Portsmouth to wait for the 8 a.m. opening on the first day of North American sales for the new iPhone 5.Charles McMahon photo

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September 22, 2012 2:00 AM

PORTSMOUTH â€" College sophomores Kyle Willis and Zack Meisner were among the leaders in a line of anxious cell phone owners queued up outside the local Verizon Wireless store early Friday morning for the launch of the new iPhone 5.

Both University of New Hampshire students arrived at the Woodbury Avenue store around 1:30 a.m. in hopes of not missing out on the launch of the new Apple smartphone.

Early Friday morning, the duo waited patiently in chairs for the 8 a.m. opening. Like the nearly 15 others bundled up behind them, Willis and Meisner passed the time by playing with their phones and occasionally making conversation.

Willis said he was eager to get the new iPhone because he had recently broken his phone and needed an upgrade.

Meisner, who already owned an iPhone 4S, said he wanted the new iPhone 5 because of its 4G capabilities. The 19-year-old said he would likely give his old phone to his mother.

"It's been a great run," he said about his iPhone 4S.

Unlike the two leaders of the line, Dover resident Alisha Mueller said she did her homework and visited the store a day earlier to see whether there would be long lines. Mueller said she learned from store employees that they were not expecting too big of a crowd, so she showed up at about 7 a.m. Friday. She said her decision to get up early for the new iPhone was less about the product and more about her cell phone carrier's service.

Mueller said she has a contract with a different cell phone service but decided to take advantage of the new customer deals with the Verizon store. The Dover resident said she was planning on buying an iPhone 5 with 32 gigabytes of memory.

"I have a lot of music," she said.

Verizon officials also eagerly awaited the phone launch.

"Today's smartphones are still only as fast and dependable as the network they run on," said Michael Murphy, Verizon Wireless spokesman, touting Verizon's 4G LTE network.

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