Hands-On Impressions of the iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, and Touch ID

[AaronEdwards]

$100 less for a 5c than for a 5s, and you'll have to pay for the same 2 year contract.
And if you after 2 years want to sell your phone, you will get a lot more for the 5s than the 5c.

I guess those who aren't able to pay another $100 for a 5s, those who can't calculate the total cost of the phone including contract, and those who don't understand the second hand value of the phones will get a 5c...

 

[Battlefield Fan]

Its official. Safari is snappier.

die

 

[rhetorik]

Looks pretty interesting

 

[Taz Mangus]

I'm really excited with the fingerprint sensors.



Awesome.

I like the fact that you don't have to swipe you finger to get it to work.

 

[macosxuser01]

Sounds like I am in the minority, but I am very much looking forward to getting the 5S. Coming from a 4 currently this is going to be a huge upgrade for me.

Same here. It's gonna feel like awesome. I'm going to sell my iPhone 4 for about $120 to go towards buying a 5S

 

[goinskiing]

Changing a wallpaper is laborious?

First world problems.

Also, what's the deal with no pre-order on the 5s? I wonder if that's because the various carriers are handling that?

 

[Toltepeceno]

$100 less for a 5c than for a 5s, and you'll have to pay for the same 2 year contract.
And if you after 2 years want to sell your phone, you will get a lot more for the 5s than the 5c.

I guess those who aren't able to pay another $100 for a 5s, those who can't calculate the total cost of the phone including contract, and those who don't understand the second hand value of the phones will get a 5c...

Exactly, if the phone were half the price I could see the point.....but 549. and 649.?

The point was obviously not to get market share in third world countries, just sell a lot less of a phone for only 100.00 less.

Yes, I'm disappointed. I thought I might begin to see a surge in iphones here in mex.....especially at my house.

 

[50548]

As I had predicted, what a yawny event. At least the iPhone 5S looks good, is well built and carries the useful fingerprint feature. Everything else is a filler.

 

[votdfak]

It's official. iPhone 5s is great upgrade from iPhone 4. Some people.

 

[0xyMoron]

Low budget phone at a premium price. Only Apple is stupid enough to try to pull that off. Good luck.

 

[50548]

Exactly, if the phone were half the price I could see the point.....but 549. and 649.?

The point was obviously not to get market share in third world countries.

The US is a third world country nowadays, so perhaps that was Apple's intent after all.

 

[Dekema2]

Sounds like I am in the minority, but I am very much looking forward to getting the 5S. Coming from a 4 currently this is going to be a huge upgrade for me.

Despite its lack of useful features, I think it will make a great first iPhone for me.

 

[nsayer]

Would have been better if Apple released two different screen sizes for iPhone 5S instead of releasing that plastic iPhone 5C on the side.

Why?

 

[Taz Mangus]

This is how you make a plastic phone, though: from the cohesive shell to the smooth and glossy back (which did pick up a fair number of fingerprints) the device feels far better than Samsung's or LG's plastic options. Even the rubbery cases look nice, their open-circle backs fitting in nicely with the color palette.

I was not aware that Samsung and LG offered plastic on their phones as a option.

 

[roadbloc]

Low budget phone at a premium price. Only Apple is stupid enough to try to pull that off. Good luck.

I suppose one could call it a... um... oxymoron.

 

[Ursadorable]

Low budget phone at a premium price. Only Apple is stupid enough to try to pull that off. Good luck.

Samsung already has the welfare crowd locked up with plastic Android junk phones.

 

[mappyman]

Apple has always skimped on DRAM, I hope they've increased it to 2GB or 4GB.

Knowing stingy Apple it will still be 1GB.

 

[RichTF]

Low budget phone at a premium price. Only Apple is stupid enough to try to pull that off. Good luck.

How is it a low budget phone, seeing as it has all of the feature of the iPhone 5, plus a couple of minor improvements? My iPhone 5 doesn't feel “low budget” to me.

 

[peterdevries]

Please explain WHY $100 to jump from 16GB to 32GB.

Go and read "Pricing and Upselling Strategies for Dummies". It's on page 1.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Despite its lack of useful features, I think it will make a great first iPhone for me.

I sure would not want to buy or own a phone which had a lack of useful features. Kind of defeats the purpose of buying one.

 

[copykris]

Dear Apple:

Please explain WHY $100 to jump from 16GB to 32GB.
And I'm not even asking where is the SD card slot.
Get on with the program! Competition is catching up.

um

they caught up about 5 years ago

 

[Taz Mangus]

Go and read "Pricing and Upselling Strategies for Dummies". It's on page 1.

Pretty amazing how Apple has been selling iDevices like this since they started and people think it is going to change now.

 

[MikhailT]

As I'm planning to keep my iPhone 5 and update to iOS7 ASAP, that statement about the 5S with its monster A7 running iOS7 is a little concerning.

That's not a performance issue, just the stupid slow animation timer that Apple needs to fix, it's too slow. They need to reduce it by half to make it feel faster.

It's like what folks mentioned a few times about OS X, if you disable the animations, the whole OS X feels much faster, even though it is the same speed.

Apple has always skimped on DRAM, I hope they've increased it to 2GB or 4GB.

Knowing stingy Apple it will still be 1GB.

4GB isn't going to happen for another 2-3 years. 2GB I hope they did for the next iPad, it really needs it more than the iPhone.

 

[Oracle1729]

So, to sum up. In the 41 months since the iPhone 4 was released, we have:

-- A faster CPU
-- Siri
-- A screen that's bigger by 0.5 inches in one dimension
-- A better camera
-- A fingerprint reader
-- More colors

And we are still paying 2010 prices for flash memory that costs less than a quarter of what it did. A 64 gig USB 3 stick is $30, 64 gig high speed SSD's are in the $60 range. upgrading the iPhone to 64 gig is still $200. Even though the OS and Apps have grown over time, the flash size is still the same.

I think the celebrations are well underway at google and samsung. Even Steve Ballmer has got to be laughing right now.

 

[akamu24]

Ehh, yawn…looks like the last one. A couple of features are cool, but this is Apple we're talking about. Can't wait for 6.

Why? It'll be evolutionary as well.