On paper, the iPhone 5c sure looks like an iPhone 5 in a shiny jacket. If that’s the case, why does the 5c feel so premium?
The iPhone 5c is a shiny new addition to the iPhone line-up, packing in a dual-core 1.3GHz A7 processor, a new tri-core graphics engine, 1GB of RAM, a 4-inch Retina display which claps your eyeballs with its 1136×640 resolution (326 ppi) and a 1510mAh battery.
The 5c’s big claim to fame is that it’s Apple’s first “coloured” iPhone. It comes in five different coloured plastic shades, with each looking as good as the last.
Like we said in our iPhone 5s hands-on, the iPhone 5c is benefiting from both an iterative hardware upgrade, as well as a shiny improvement on the software side with iOS 7. It’s amazing how a bit of a spit and polish on the software side can make an minor hardware update feel like a completely new experience.
Jony Ive, Apple’s design tsar and resident inspirational speech giver, describes the iPhone 5c as “unapologetically plastic”, but if you hadn’t described it outright as plastic, you could have fooled us into thinking it was a gloss polycarbonate material similar to that found on the excellent Lumia 920.
The case colours could be described as a vibrant, glossy fluro for those wondering how intense they are.
Apple has gone to the effort to hard-code wallpapers specific to the colour of your device so that each iPhone represents the design language of the case it’s sporting. It’s a nice touch, and it’s interesting to see that APple opted for a black clock design on the cover rather than a white one on the pink 5c we’re rocking.
That plastic isn’t without problems, however: it’s actually heavier than the aluminium iPhone 5 when you hold it in your hand, but not by a great deal.
Aside from the design, this iPhone is much the same as the iPhone 5 in a shiny new design. That’s not a bad thing though, because you must consider that this device isn’t meant for iPhone 5 owners, it’s meant for people with iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S handsets.
Stay tuned for our full review of the iPhone 5c.