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5S or 5C for parent?

R

Rhyno37

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 23, 2011
130
0
Hey guys, I'm trying to help my mom (early fifties) buy her first smartphone. After many work trips she's decided that she needs a smartphone for checking email, GPS, and web browsing. I've decided iOS because of the simplicity, and it's what I have so it's easier to teach. We are on the same plan on Verizon, and I'm not sure whether she should get the 5C or 5S. Bestbuy currently has the 5C 32gb on sale for $49, and I'm thinking that's the way to go. She doesn't really need Touch ID. Do you guys think the 5C will be sufficient for 2 years from now when she can upgrade again? At worst, I figure I can give her my 6 next year, and use my grandmothers upgrade to get the 6S (I would assume).

What do you guys think?
 
For basic stuff I think the 5C will be fine for the next 2 years. Plenty of people are still making good use of iPhone 4 and 4S phones from 3-4 years ago. iPhone 5/5C hardware is still quite powerful even by today's standards.
 
Rhyno37 said:
Hey guys, I'm trying to help my mom (early fifties) buy her first smartphone. After many work trips she's decided that she needs a smartphone for checking email, GPS, and web browsing. I've decided iOS because of the simplicity, and it's what I have so it's easier to teach. We are on the same plan on Verizon, and I'm not sure whether she should get the 5C or 5S. Bestbuy currently has the 5C 32gb on sale for $49, and I'm thinking that's the way to go. She doesn't really need Touch ID. Do you guys think the 5C will be sufficient for 2 years from now when she can upgrade again? At worst, I figure I can give her my 6 next year, and use my grandmothers upgrade to get the 6S (I would assume).

What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

My mom is a little older and has been able to figure out most things on her iPad 4th gen. The only thing she doesn't quite get is LTE. She leaves it turned off for some reason. No matter since she's mostly on wifi.

Anyway, if I were helping my mom get a smartphone, I'd push her toward the 5c. It's durable so she wouldn't have to mess around with a case or deal with Touch ID. Of course your mom might be different. If you can, get her to an Apple store so she can try both out.
 
Either really, depends what you want to spend. Personally, I would get the 5c though. It feels much better in hand.

I just got an iPhone 5 (64GB) at the beginning of the month, and I'm going to sell it since I bought a 5c (32GB) new off contract to replace it because I like the feel and build so much better. Crazy I know. But the 5's glass was coming up a bit off the aluminum, and the camera has a leak where dust gets in it.

My parents (60) both got the iPhone 5 when it came out and other than adjusting from iOS 6 to 7 (that confused them a good bit) they've had a good time with them. Mom has an otter box and dad has his good ol' holster.

The 5s probably won't be very beneficial as far as every day use goes, and the money saved may be worth it. I don't think the 5/5c will have any issue lasting two more years. I was using a 2011 4s up until last month without issue or lag whatsoever. Even the 4 is supported, though it's pretty laggy (single core).
 
My dad (around your mom's age) recently said he was going to get a 5C for his upgrade from the 4.

I don't think it matters. She'll love either of them coming from a feature phone. My brother has the white 5C and it looks nice.
 
50yrs old is young. :) To save money I would go with the 5c 32GB. That's plenty enough space for photos and videos. Most of my friends who went in with the iPhone 4 8GB use it with very little apps, but their photo app is filled to capacity. And now they are ready to upgrade.

The 5c is good especially if you have the 5s/5c. You can show her and help navigate on your phone. I do this with my parents. Also you can Airdrop stuff to them.
 
My dad uses my old iPhone 4 currently (gonna give him my 5 when I get the 6 this year). For his uses it's still plenty quick. I'd expect the 5C would be fine to last your mom a couple of years.
 
My parents were in the same boat. Went with the 5C. They were coming from dumb phones so they wouldn't notice a difference either way. The 5C is surprisingly comfortable to hold and it is still plenty powerful enough to make calls, send messages, Siri and GPS and Facebook for my parents.
 
I7guy said:
I would stay away from android, for parents. But that is me.
Click to expand...
My (mid 50s, techno-ambivalent) sister managed, with minimal assistance, to hide/cripple all the scary bits on her Galaxy S3. I know very little about Android but, as far as I could tell, she'd left herself with a clean/simple interface and she couldn't bugger anything up without consciously *trying* to bugger things up.

It obviously depends on the amount of browsing that's required, but my (late 40s) eyes struggle when forced to use an iPhone for non-optimised web content for more than half an hour or so. I'm not in a position to say how much more pleasant the experience would be on a 4.7–5.0" screen, though, and beyond 5.0" you're getting into the realms of 'silly sized' for something that's primarily a phone.
 
We got my mother-in-law a 16GB 5C for Christmas. This was an upgrade from her 8GB iPhone 4.

For what she uses it for (calling, texting, e-mailing, some gaming and knitting apps), the 5S is overkill.

Besides, she likes the pink color better than any of the metal ones. ;-)
 
mojolicious said:
My (mid 50s, techno-ambivalent) sister managed, with minimal assistance, to hide/cripple all the scary bits on her Galaxy S3. I know very little about Android but, as far as I could tell, she'd left herself with a clean/simple interface and she couldn't bugger anything up without consciously *trying* to bugger things up.



It obviously depends on the amount of browsing that's required, but my (late 40s) eyes struggle when forced to use an iPhone for non-optimised web content for more than half an hour or so. I'm not in a position to say how much more pleasant the experience would be on a 4.7–5.0" screen, though, and beyond 5.0" you're getting into the realms of 'silly sized' for something that's primarily a phone.
Click to expand...


Think it was since android released jellybean you could put the phone into a basic mode. This may be what she did.
 
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