The iPhone 5S Club

[Mity]

I'd like to join

I joined the Apple club back in early 2013 when AT&T ran the trade-in program. I got my first iPhone, the iPhone 5 for $100 after trading in my first smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Infuse. It didn't take me long to come around to the iPhone.

Recently, I tried going back to Android - I bought a Sony Xperia Z3 and promptly sold it as it took up my entire pocket in my slim jeans. The outline of a large phone in skinny jeans is ridiculous and more importantly uncomfortable.

Now, I'm looking to "upgrade" to the iPhone 5s. I love the design and slim profile of the iPhone 5 series. They don't slip out of your hands and they fit neatly into the skinniest of jeans. In my opinion, the best iPhone made to date.

I can't believe Apple got bullied into making larger phones. Instead, they really should've improved the camera, added sapphire, and worked on the OS. I also think the iPhone Plus is going to cannibalize sales of the iPad mini. Bad move, in my opinion...

 

[GnrlyMrly]

Do you guys know of anywhere that is still selling the 64GB 5S new?

 

[yjchua95]

I joined the 5 club, then moved to the 5S, then bought a 6 and 6+ because I succumbed to temptation.

Now I can't use my 5/5S anymore. The screen is too cramped.

 

[Woochifer]

The 5s has really held its own. The A7 was a huge step up, with a custom design and a new architecture.

The way it looks, Apple has settled into an alternation with their processors. This go-round, Apple focused on the graphics performance and the battery life. The actual improvement to the CPU performance was small, compared to the huge bump up in performance between the 5 and 5s.

While the chip performance increased by ~20%, the power consumption went down by half. This allowed Apple to go to a larger screen, without an accompanying gain in heft. Similar to the A7-powered 5s, I would expect that the A9 will feature a new chip design that creates a much bigger bump up in performance.

The progression of Apple's chip designs has been very impressive.

A4 - first venture into their own SoC; used reference ARM core designs
A5 - first venture into dual cores; still used reference ARM designs
A6 - first venture into custom-designed cores
A7 - first venture into 64-bit CPU; new custom-designed CPU cores
A8 - die shrink, enhancements, big energy consumption reduction
A8X - first venture into three-core design; first venture into customizing the GPU

At every step, Apple has added a significant enhancement and gone further into custom chip designs. The A8X is Apple's first step towards custom designing their own GPUs. They took two sets of GPUs clusters and stacked them on the SoC. The cores and clusters are still reference designs, but the exercise seems to point towards bigger things. The A9 very well could signify what all those GPU engineers they've hired have been doing.

 

[nburwell]

While I do have the 6, I have kept my 5s as my back up phone. I do like switching between the 6 and 5s though. But while I will sell my 6 before the 6s is announced, I will be keeping my 5s since it's factory unlocked, so I will just use that for when I travel overseas and keep the 6 at home.

 

[Appl3FTW]

im a fan of the 5s... so far, it's the biggest S upgrade EVARRR.

 

[RickTaylor]

I recently upgraded to the 5s. When I want to do something where screen-size makes a difference, I reach for my iPad mini retina. Otherwise, I prefer my phone to be compact. I'll likely stick with this form factor as long as Apple supports it.