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Rather than discount last year’s model with the introduction of the iPhone 5s, Apple opted to replace it—albeit with a gussied-up and slightly tweaked version. Indeed, the iPhone 5c packs nearly all of the same features and internal tech as last year’s iPhone 5, which makes it one heck of an excellent handset in almost every respect, from the glorious four-inch Retina display to the speedy 4G LTE service and stellar 8-megapixel camera.
As for what’s different, need we really point it out? Apple’s tendency toward bold coloring finally extends into the iPhone world after years of black, white, and silver components, with vivid, rounded plastic backings designed to assault your eyes—in a good or bad way, depending your palette preferences. Aside from the comparatively safe white model, the candy-coated blue, green, pink, and yellow shells shed the sophisticated allure of recent iPhone models for something decidedly more simplistic, but certainly eye-catching.
We’re fans of the colorful look of the plastic exterior, but not so much the feel of it. Simply put, the iPhone 5c backing feels slippery in the hand, and during use we feared more for a grim demise from butterfingers than with any other recent iPhone. As such, investing in a case seems more like a necessity than an option, though covering up that vibrant shell sort of defeats the point of the 5c refresh. Apple’s own case isn’t a great solution, though it’ll suffice until third-party manufacturers take their best shot.
Color-coordinated wallpapers in iOS 7 let you match what’s on the screen to what’s on the back of your device, which is a slick touch, and the brighter palette of the refreshed OS in general fits well with the iPhone 5c aesthetic. Besides the new exterior, the iPhone 5c adds in a slightly larger battery than the iPhone 5, plus adds an enhanced FaceTime HD camera that allows for improved low-light performance, and bumps the number of LTE bands to up to 13 for wider worldwide use. Otherwise, this is essentially the same tech found within the now-discontinued iPhone 5.
The ambiguous letter at the tail end of the iPhone 5c could very easily stand for “colorful,” but we’d rather think it stands for “casual”—as in, the kind of phone-users likely to consider buying it. Even a year later, the iPhone 5 remains a wonderful handset, and the 5c refresh makes it a more visually alluring counterpart to the iPhone 5s. But serious Apple users who crave bleeding-edge tech and meaningful annual enhancements aren’t going to be swayed away from the iPhone 5s by a mere $100 price difference. Signing away two more years to a wireless carrier for last year’s tech is especially sure to give any tech-savvy user pause.
The bottom line. The iPhone 5c puts a colorful twist on the excellent phone we know and love, but the price point isn’t appealing enough to shrug off the powerful iPhone 5s.
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