Apple has introduced the iPhone 5c, a lower cost smartphone in five colors: blue, green, pink, yellow and white. It sports a 4-inch Retina display, A6 chip, and the 8 megapixel iSight camera all in a plastic body.
“The iPhone 5c is everything iPhone 5 was and more, in an all-new design packed with great features,” says Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.
Its all-new design is crafted from a single, hard-coated polycarbonate body with a steel reinforced frame. The steel frame holds the internal components and also doubles as the iPhone 5c’s multiband antenna. The enclosure is one continuous and seamless structure that is finished with a hard coat.
To complement the all-new iPhone 5c design, Apple created soft, matte, microfiber-lined cases in an intentional contrast to the glossy, hard coat finish. These sleek silicone cases with unique circular patterns let splashes of color show through, and with five iPhone 5c colors and six cases to choose from, you can mix and match for dozens of combinations.
The iPhone 5c support up to 13 LTE wireless bands, more than any other smartphone in the world, according to Schiller. It boasts download speeds up to 100 Mbps, you can browse, download and stream content even faster. The iPhone 5c includes dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi support for up to 150 Mbps and Bluetooth 4.0.
The Apple smartphone reportedly delivers 10 hours of talk time on 3G networks, up to 10 hours of web browsing on Wi-Fi and LTE networks and up to eight hours on 3G networks, and up to 10 hours of video playback and up to 40 hours of audio playback. And it comes with iOS 7.
The iPhone 5c will be available in the US for a suggested retail price of US$99 for the 16GB model and $199 for the 32GB model. It will be available from the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores, and through AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and select Apple Authorized Resellers.
iPhone 5c cases will be available in blue, green, pink, yellow, black and white for a suggested retail price of $29 through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers.
The iPhone 5c will be available in the US, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK on Friday, September 20, and customers can pre-order their iPhone 5c beginning Friday, September 13.
A new iPhone 4S 8GB model will also be available for free. iOS 7 will be available as a free software update starting on Wednesday, Sept. 18 for iPhone 4 and later, iPad 2 and later, iPad mini and iPod touch (fifth generation). Some features may not be available on all products.