If you’ve been following tech blogs such as ours over the past few months then you’ll have already heard of this little one before. The C, according to Apple, stands for colourful, but could also in theory stand for ‘cheaper’, although not by as much as we had thought.
Colourful it certainly is though, coming in lime green, light blue, yellow, pink and white. With iOS 7 as the operating system Apple also matches the colour of the phone to a snazzy matching background – this phone is like iPhone 5 meets iPod Touch. The rear panel is a single piece of injection-moulded plastic, which is tough and glossy, but adds thickness to the phone making it 9mm compared to the iPhone 5S that measures 7.6mm.
Effectively the iPhone 5C is an iPhone 5 in a colourful plastic shell, with an improved battery life and a better front camera. The same 4-inch Retina display is used, it runs iOS 7 and it has the same 8-megapixel Full HD video shooting rear camera as the iPhone 5. The 5C also sports 4G connectivity and the A6 processor, which also featured in the iPhone 5, along with 1GB of RAM.
Despite its plastic shell and some dialed back features, the iPhone 5C certainly won’t be the affordable or mid-range smartphone we had expected from the rumours over the past few months. In the UK the 16GB model will set you back £470, which is just £80 less than the new 5S. The 32GB will be priced at £550, both of those being SIM-free prices. All UK networks will also be stocking the 5C and prices should be slightly lower than those of the 5S on a monthly basis.
The iPhone 5C’s 4G connectivity will work on Vodafone, O2 and EE’s networks here in the UK, and we’re waiting on confirmation of compatibility with Three’s forthcoming 4G services. It’ll be available to pre-order from Apple on September 13th along with the 5S and launches on September 20th.
