iPhone 5c review

From £469

Apple does a few things amazingly well: marketing, for instance. And shamelessly combining the ideas of others into new products that work better than any of their predecessors (witness the iPhone and the iPad). With the iPhone 5c, we can add another entry to that list of things Apple does brilliantly: plastic.

Indeed, as Apple puts it the new cheaper iPhone 5 is "unashamedly" plastic. Its five colours look properly mass market in a kind of pop-art way that will make many embrace it despite the price. My green device shined in a way that Samsung and Nokia, both plastic experts, have never quite attained. For the first time, the iPhone looks fun - it’s a break with the past some fans may not like.

The 5c is, however, not cheap: Apple markets it as more accessible to the slightly more cost-conscious but if you're broke and want an iPhone, get a 4S, still available and free on many contracts. If you're really broke pick up a 3GS on eBay for peanuts.

Indeed, the 5c is all about one of Apple's other excellent skills: marketing. It is the iPhone 5 with a new cover for new markets. And it is every bit as good as the glass and steel excellent, discontinued iPhone 5, and roughly the same price as it would have been had Apple continued to make it. Indeed, the 5c basically is today’s iPhone 5 in a new case, allowing Apple to sell it as a new iPhone, injecting new life that would be impossible if it were simply still selling yesterday’s potatoes. The fact that it now includes additional radio bands that mean it can receive 4G on all UK networks is an added bonus. Apple also claims that the 5c offers two hours of improved battery life, but the fact remains the 5c does not have the power to do the 14 hour day many would like from their smartphone. Its selling points are that lovely new design, the excellent, existing iPhone 5 camera, the vast number of apps - all the usual Apple masterstrokes.

^{Photo taken on iPhone 5c}

^{Photo taken on iPhone 5s}

The biggest change, however, is that the 5c comes with iOS7 - this is a radical new look for the iPhone, and not one that every existing user will embrace. That’s not because it is worse but simply because it is very different. With the new look comes an altered font. There's far less, as has been well documented, of the skeuomorphism that dictates a phone's screen should somehow replicate a 1950s desktop. It's hard, for now at least, to see the new OS as anything other than primarily cosmetic in everyday use, but it matches the bold colours of the 5c perfectly, and the new control centre and multitasking is genuinely useful.

And with its neatly designed cases, with holes to provide colour contrast, the 5c looks every bit the junior iPhone to the new 5s. It's younger, and while it may only be slightly cheaper it will appeal to new markets perhaps just enough to keep consumers away from the temptations of rivals for a little longer. If you’ve got an iPhone 5, it’s hard to see why you should buy a 5c.

So this model is by no means revolutionary; it's a conscious shift in a new direction. It's beautiful, in its own way. If you want a new iPhone but have been tempted to go elsewhere, this is the most convenient, easiest option. Apple will tell you it's great; they're right. It's a great, more affordable reason not to go Android. And it’s a great replacement for a 4 or a 4S, whose glass many owners will have broken but put up with. Plastic is cheaper for Apple to make, more durable - and more novel. Its novelty, rather than new features, is the 5c’s major selling point. Critics may carp that the iPhone doesn’t compete with the features offered by many rivals, but the 5c’s main rivals are simply other iPhones. It’s a great phone, and a stroke of marketing genius.

Buy the Apple iPhone 5c from

Amazon.co.uk