iPhone 5C review Features
Apple’s flashy, budget-based smartphones are hitting shelves in all their polycarbonate goodness. Despite our reservations, they look and feel terrific, compounded with capable hardware on par with the iPhone 5 and available in a myriad of colors for the fashionista inside all of us. However, if you want to maintain your device’s shimmer and shine through the everyday trials and tribulations it will undoubtedly face, then it’s best to snag your new phone some worthwhile protection. It may render the whole color component and appeal moot, but at least you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing your iPhone 5C looks fantastic beneath the bulky exterior you’ve placed in.
The iPhone lineup has always spurred an abundance of imaginative and durable cases, whether you’re looking for some sleek and chic, virtually indestructible or just downright fun. The market for cases was flooded well before you weathered the storm for your 5C and continues to expand with each passing week. And no matter what you’re looking for, we’ve got the solution for you buried in the extensive roundup below. Now if only iOS 7 wasn’t plagued by all those nagging issues.
When a new device comes out, it’s only natural to compare it to its immediate predecessor: Does this thing do something new the last thing couldn’t do? It’s a measuring stick, a way to put the new device into context. And when we’re talking iPhones, it’s a perfectly standard practice.
But I think that comparing the iPhone 5c only to the model it replaces would be a mistake.
In part that’s because the 5c so closely matches the specs and features of its predecessor, last year’s iPhone 5. (Apple’s other 2013-model phone, the iPhone 5s, received the more compelling feature upgrades.) But it’s also because of how people buy smartphones in an era of two-year commitments to carriers. If you signed away 24 months of your life to the likes of AT&T, Verizon, or Sprint last fall for an iPhone 5, a color change and an improved front-facing camera probably aren’t enough to get you to reevaluate things one spin around the sun later.
iPhone 5C review
What is the iPhone 5C?
The iPhone 5C is something new in the iPhone line-up. It’s a lower-cost alternative to the iPhone 5S – normally Apple simply trots out old models for those who can’t afford the new top dog. To save a few pennies, the iPhone 5C uses a shell of plastic rather than metal, but starting at £469 this is no cheap phone. Indeed, it sells for around the same price as the iPhone 5 would have done if Apple had kept it and internally it’s extremely similar to the old iPhone 5. It may be colourful, but does it have anything else to offer?
HardWare
We’re not going to lie. The iPhone 5c is gorgeous — we’d even argue that it’s the most beautiful iPhone since the 4 and 4s. It instantly makes the iPhone 5 and 5s look staid in comparison. Sure, we prefer materials like aluminum and glass over plastic, and we appreciate the intricate craftsmanship that goes into building the iPhone 5 and 5s, but still, we can’t help it — the 5c just triggers some reptilian part of our brains that screams, “OMG, color!” It brings a breath of fresh air to the iPhone lineup and will appeal to consumers at an emotional level. As such, we predict the 5c is going to be wildly popular this holiday season.
Apple’s not the first company to design a handset using colored-through, machined polycarbonate. Nokia did it with the N9 and several Lumias — most recently the 1020 – and HTC did it with the One X. Indeed, with those devices, both manufacturers showed that plastic could be used to craft highly refined products with superior build quality. Now, the iPhone 5c takes that concept one step further with a steel-reinforced shell covered in an ultra-shiny finish. While some of Nokia’s aforementioned models also feature a glossy coating, the surface of the 5c is even smoother — like enamel. This, combined with an extremely rigid structure, makes the 5c feel like a solid block of ceramic.
Love
- Colourful chassis
- iOS 7 looks incredible
- Improved battery life
Hate
- Price-tag compared to rivals
- Smaller screen than rivals
The iPhone 5c is a curious one. Building up to the announcement – which also featured the flagship iPhone 5s - we were expecting a lower-priced handset with features similar to the iPhone 4S. What Cook and co served-up was a iPhone 5 in Technicolour with a price tag more premium than peanuts.
With a starting SIM-free price of £496 for the 16GB model, it’s expensive compared to the HTC One Mini (£365), Nokia Lumia 625 (£179) and Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini at £429, which we’d put in the same category. And, with the iPhone 5 primed to be snapped up at a cut price, is colour alone enough to make the iPhone 5c a best-seller for Apple?
CAMERA
As you probably guessed (notice a theme here?) the iPhone 5c inherits the rear camera from the iPhone 5. It’s the same 8-megapixel BSI sensor, five-element f/2.4 AF lens (with hybrid IR filter), sapphire glass cover and single LED flash as last year. While that’s a solid foundation, iOS 7 brings a bunch of new functionality to the table, including real-time filters, a square format and 3x video zoom — along with a much welcome UI refresh. The 5c also gains the improved 1.2MP front-facing shooter (BSI sensor with 1.9µm pixels) found on the iPhone 5s. Compared to Apple’s flagship, the 5c lacks 120 fps, 720p slow-motion video capture, 10 fps burst mode with real-time analysis, auto-exposure during panoramas, auto image stabilization and the True Tone flash.
iPhone 5c: Size and build
The c stands for colour and the iPhone 5c has plenty of that. At launch, the iPhone 5c will come in five hues; white, pink, yellow, blue and green. It’ll certainly stand out from the crowd, especially with each being colour co-ordinated with theiOS 7 home screen.
One of the complaints we had of the iPhone 5 was that it was a tad light. The iPhone 5c is heavier at 132g and also thicker at 8.97mm. This reassuring bulk and subsequent sturdy feel comes from a steel-reinforced frame, which also acts as an antenna, surrounded by a plastic case. However, like Nokia’s Lumia range, this isn’t cheap plastic, it’s a one-piece polycarbonate chassis that’s warm and pleasant to the touch. Some might even say nicer in the palm of your hand than cold, hard metal.
The high-gloss finish means the iPhone 5c looks and feels like a premium product and one that could cope with more bumps and scrapes than their glass-back predecessors.
Apart from the colour, the iPhone 5c build is almost an exact carbon copy of the iPhone 5. The exterior buttons remain the same, the headphone jack resides on the bottom edge, along with the speaker and Lightning port, while the volume rocker lives on the side next to the ring/lock switch.
iPhone 5c: Features
Powering the iPhone 5c is the A6 chip found in the iPhone 5. It’s still noticeably faster than the iPhone 4′s A5 processor and, with the iOS 7 update, the difference is even more obvious. The 5c multitasks with ease and whizzes through the UI.
Watching HD videos and playing graphic-intensive games also impress. Connectivity wise, the 5c sports speedy N Wifi and Bluetooth 4.0 but NFC remains on the blacklist of Apple features.
iPhone 5C review Features
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