iPhone 5c review: Apple's 2013 polycarbonate experiment — the colourful, cheaper iPhone.
The colourful budget iPhone.
iPhone 5c was Apple's one attempt at a mainstream "cheaper" iPhone before the SE line — a polycarbonate-bodied iPhone 5 in five colours. Commercially it underwhelmed (buyers stretched to the 5s), but it remains a design landmark and a collector favourite.
01Display
58/10058/100 is one of the weaker display results among legacy phones of 2013 — 9 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
02Camera
52/10052/100 trails the 57-point cohort average for legacy phones of 2013.
03Performance
50/10050/100 is one of the weaker performance results among legacy phones of 2013 — 6 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
04Battery
56/10056/100 trails the 61-point cohort average for legacy phones of 2013.
05Build
70/10070/100 is one of the weaker build results among legacy phones of 2013 — 9 points under the average. Check the rows below before buying for this.
06Value
56/10056/100 — right at the average for legacy phones of 2013.
- Five colourful polycarbonate finishes — distinctive even today.
- Same A6 chip as the iPhone 5.
- Reinforced unibody is durable.
- Reached iOS 10 — long support for the era.
- Discontinued — last update was iOS 10.3.4 in 2019.
- 1 GB RAM and 8 MP camera are dated.
- 1,510 mAh battery is tiny.
- Was barely cheaper than the iPhone 5s.
How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 6-phone cohort of legacy devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .