5c vs 5s?

[alkemyst]

I have a family of

Me: iPhone 5 16GB
G/F: iPhone 4s 16GB
kid1 (15yo): iPhone 5 16GB
kid2 (11 yo): iPhone 4s 16GB
adult kid: iPhone 4, 32GB

I am a power user, I use my tethering A LOT as a network engineer going into greenfield / restricted internet access locations (I go from around 6GB to 16GB depending on client/workload). The iPhone 5 is insanely faster than my 4s.

The rest of the family uses hot spotting/tethering rarely. Power outages and the like.

I have 2 available upgrades and I am with Verizon.

I figure since all the iPhones are in great condition (all in cases so look perfect). I can probably sell at least the 4 32GB and a 4s 16GB to cover the costs. I am debating going to 5 across the board.

My plan is to pass my iPhone 5 to our adult kid, the older boy's iPhone 5 to his brother. Upgrade my G/F and older kid to either a 5s or 5c. I am getting myself a 5s. My g/f is not so much a power user and loves the color options of the 5c. Color options are solved with cases IMHO.

I don't plan on going higher than 16GB on these phones.

Advice for bang for buck appreciated. It's going to cost me $300 to $600 depending how I go, then selling off the left over 4 32GB, and two 4s 16GB's.

 

[Eug]

Get the 5S. You know you want it.

As for the rest of them, I'd sell the 4 for sure. Not sure about the others because the 4S is fine with iOS 7.

Can you negotiate a discount for being off contract, and then get the iPhone 6 next year?

 

[boomhower]

Since the 5C is essentially the replacement of the 5 I'd do that across the board with the exception of the 5S for yourself. With iOS 7 the added boost will be welcomed by all.

 

[Eug]

iOS 7 reportedly runs fine on the iPhone 4S. (It definitely runs fine on my iPad 2.) It's laggy on the iPhone 4 (although iOS 6 was laggy on the iPhone 4 too).

 

[bearxor]

Yeah, I'd see who would be fine with the 5 and see whom might want a 5C in a different color. Then upgrade yourself to the 5S. I wouldn't spend the money on a 5S for anyone else if they didn't care about it.

 

[alkemyst]

Get the 5S. You know you want it.

As for the rest of them, I'd sell the 4 for sure. Not sure about the others because the 4S is fine with iOS 7.

Can you negotiate a discount for being off contract, and then get the iPhone 6 next year?

I am definitely going 5s.

I don't want to lose my one 'free' upgrade in the queue.

I am hoping to upgrade and sell off the phones no longer used and then buy something without contract.

 

[2is]

I'd rather save the upgrade for the 6 personally, if you already have a 5. The 5S is IMO the least significant iPhone upgrade in iPhone history.

 

[rugby]

I'd rather save the upgrade for the 6 personally, if you already have a 5. The 5S is IMO the least significant iPhone upgrade in iPhone history.

No it's not. I had a 5 and went to a 5S and the difference is substantial. I noticed it immediately and I use my phone all day long.

Try again troll.

 

[Eug]

The 5S is the biggest S upgrade in iPhone history IMO.

iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4S upgrades were at best meh in comparison.

I'm starting to think the 6 will be the 5S-S, but with a bigger screen.

 

[JAG87]

Don't waste hardware upgrades on the 5c. Use your two upgrades to get two 5s, and buy a used 5 in good shape to replace the last 4s.

By the way, this is just a personal opinion: if you are in charge all the accounts/hardware, for fairness I would give one of the two 5s to the adult kid who's had to deal with the iPhone 4 until now. But that's just me and completely subjective.

 

[2is]

No it's not. I had a 5 and went to a 5S and the difference is substantial. I noticed it immediately and I use my phone all day long.

Try again troll.

Not trolling, I've used a 5S as well and what you're seeing is your imagination. You sound like a macrumors member that gets upset at any apple criticism. Don't be that guy.

 

[rsutoratosu]

I actually install ios 7 on my 4s and it wasn't bad at all.. unlike ios 6 for iphone 4. Now im debating of installing ios 7 for my iphone 4 which is still on ios 5 or just sell it.. its my spare travel out of country phone

 

[Eug]

I actually install ios 7 on my 4s and it wasn't bad at all.. unlike ios 6 for iphone 4. Now im debating of installing ios 7 for my iphone 4 which is still on ios 5 or just sell it.. its my spare travel out of country phone

iOS 6 is noticeably slower than 5 on the iPhone 4.
iOS 7 is slightly slower than 6 on the iPhone 4, but it's in roughly the same ballpark as 6 once you turn off some of the iOS 7 eye candy, etc. So if you're happy with the speed on 6, you may be happy with it on 7 as well, but YMMV.

See my video here of iOS 7 on the iPhone 4:

https://vimeo.com/74929913

 

[vi edit]

Unless you absolutely positively need to save $100, I see zero point in the 5c. The 5s is more future proof and would likely retain the $100 premium at resale time should you chose to dump it in two years.

The 5c is a swing and a miss in my mind. At least for now. If it was a $350-$400 off contract buy that makes sense to me. But at it's current cost it just seems like a lame duck. If the plan is to just get it out now, and then *next* year offer it for free when the 6 comes out..then I can understand. Right now...meh. Go big

 

[Eug]

The 5S is the launch day I-wanna-have-it! item. Indeed, the 5S likely sold 3X as much on launch day than the 5C did in the US, based on usage statistics for active devices.

The 5C is for those casual users who just want a "cheap" upgrade when their contract is up for renewal. The 5C is in the same boat as the 4S last year, and the 4 the year before.

 

[vi edit]

The 5C is for those casual users who just want a "cheap" upgrade when their contract is up for renewal. The 5C is in the same boat as the 4S last year, and the 4 the year before.

It just seemed like a missed opportunity to me. If they could have pushed that off contract price down into the $399 range it's within a digestable price point to buy if you dropped your still under contract one or wanted to keep unlimited data, or simply go month to month on something.

 

[Eug]

It just seemed like a missed opportunity to me. If they could have pushed that off contract price down into the $399 range it's within a digestable price point to buy if you dropped your still under contract one or wanted to keep unlimited data, or simply go month to month on something.

And reduce their margins at the same time.

Remember, there is no shortage of people still buying the old 4S for what I consider insanely high prices. For a used 4S, you can still get over $300. Apple selling 5C level hardware for $400 makes no sense. At best Apple can sell 4S level hardware for $400. Well, they're already doing that almost, selling the 4S for $450.

 

[Red Storm]

You're on Verizon? Curious, how much do you pay for tethering? I imagine 6GB-10GB costs a lot...

 

[jiffylube1024]

The 5S is the biggest S upgrade in iPhone history IMO.

iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4S upgrades were at best meh in comparison.

I'm starting to think the 6 will be the 5S-S, but with a bigger screen.

That is absurd historical revisionism. The 3GS was the first iPhone to use a "modern" ARM core - the Arm Cortex A8, and consequently ironed out pretty much all of the lag that was a huge problem in iOS before that. Just try using an iPhone 3G to do anything these days - you can't even surf the web it's so slow.


The architectural jump was like going from a Pentium 4 to a Core i7. The iPhone 3GS went to the ARMv7 instruction set, which every single iPhone has used until the ARMv8 architecture in the 5S. The 3G used the ANCIENT ARM11 architecture.

Regarding the 3GS over the 3G- 2 to 2.5x performance jump across the board according to Anandtech:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2790

The 4S was also a big performance boost. It was the first dual core CPU in an iPhone, and had a massively improved GPU as well. It also improved the camera significantly.
----

While the 5S' performance improvements don't seem so substantial now, it's a similar horsepower update from the 4 to the 4S, and it should definitely future-proof the 5S from slowdown in iOS 8.

The 5S is basically about refinement - faster SoC with 64-bit, improved camera, fingerprint sensor.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Since the 5C is essentially the replacement of the 5 I'd do that across the board with the exception of the 5S for yourself. With iOS 7 the added boost will be welcomed by all.

Why would you spend ~$200 in difference to sell the 5 and get the 5C when it's basically a fatter, less refined version of the 5? Unless you FaceTime 2 hours a day on your phone, where the front camera is appreciably better, there's no reason to get a 5C over a 5 other than for the "shiny/new" factor.

IMO, keep the 5, get the 5S for yourself, and get 5C's for everyone else, or save some cash and pick up one or two used iPhone 5 phones.

 

[Eug]

That is absurd historical revisionism. The 3GS was the first iPhone to use a "modern" ARM core - the Arm Cortex A8, and consequently ironed out pretty much all of the lag that was a huge problem in iOS before that. Just try using an iPhone 3G to do anything these days - you can't even surf the web it's so slow.

A lot of that has to do with iOS 4. It was much better on iOS 3.

The architectural jump was like going from a Pentium 4 to a Core i7. The iPhone 3GS went to the ARMv7 instruction set, which every single iPhone has used until the ARMv8 architecture in the 5S. The 3G used the ANCIENT ARM11 architecture.

I don't care about architecture so much as user interface feel. I had a friend's iPhone 3GS and ran it side by side with my iPhone 3G. Both were decent in iOS 3 for OS navigation. What the iPhone 3GS gave was better gaming, and better Safari browsing. For most of the other stuff, they were effectively the same.

So basically, the 3GS was just a speed and RAM upgrade. Very nice to be sure, but not that exciting. At the time, I was quite unimpressed with the 3GS. I am very, very impressed by the 5S.

The 4S was also a big performance boost. It was the first dual core CPU in an iPhone, and had a massively improved GPU as well. It also improved the camera significantly.

This time you got a faster SoC, but you didn't even get more RAM. And the screen was exactly the same.

While the 5S' performance improvements don't seem so substantial now, it's a similar horsepower update from the 4 to the 4S, and it should definitely future-proof the 5S from slowdown in iOS 8.

The 5S is basically about refinement - faster SoC with 64-bit, improved camera, fingerprint sensor.

The fingerprint sensor is one of the biggest things to happen to cell phones in a very long time IMO. If it works well that is, but by all reports it works extremely well. To me this isn't on the same tier as Retina, but it's a heluvalot more important than a speed boost.

Furthermore, the 5S gets that dramatic speed boost anyway, on par with the 4S over 4, with 64-bit to boot. You can be sure that at some point in the not too distant future, upgrades will require 64-bit, which means everything less than the 5S will be cut off.

 

[manly]

Guys, please read. He's keeping two existing iPhone 5 units and appears to be buying a new 5C and a new 5S. Honestly if you're talking about "bang for the buck", getting the new 5S for both upgrades is the best scenario unless some kids will be jealous of others.

As far as the 5S itself, it's cool that roughly a doubling in performance is now just "refinement". I would agree that fingerprint reading is somewhat gimicky (but early reviewers love Apple's implementation) and the new camera "features" are mostly in software. So I could buy an argument that Apple needed to "do more," but the SoC upgrade alone is fairly substantial (just as it was when consumers yawned at the 4S release).

Unfortunately A7 isn't necessarily highly marketable, and nobody is suggesting iPhone 5 users upgrade on a 1 year cycle (the OP is a special case because he can just hand his phone down to a family member).

As for Apple getting it "wrong" with the 5C price, there's a valid argument out there and it doesn't apply to North America or Western Europe. Apple is essentially ceding the valuable Chinese market to Android and it's hard to support that from a business standpoint even if Cook and Ive insist they only care about making a great product.

p.s. adopting John Gruber's stylization of 5S and 5C.

 

[Eug]

the new camera "features" are mostly in software.

? The camera gets a physically larger sensor, and A7 gets a brand new image processor.

The former is probably mostly why the camera in the 5S is massively improved over the 5 for low light, and probably mostly why the 5S can do 10 fps shooting and that new-fangled pseudo image stabilization.

Note that continuous shooting is now also available on the iPhone 5 in iOS 7, but it manages only like 2-3 fps, most likely because the image processor just isn't up to the job.

 

[AkumaX]

does he have unlimited internet? i hope he leaves those lines alone!