OverviewThe iPhone 5c was released in 2013 in 5 colors: green, blue, yellow, pink (the best), and white. This phone is very special to me because it was my dream phone for a long time as a child. Now I've finally got TWO of them!
When I got them, one was iCloud locked and the other was passcode locked. I was able to factory reset the passcode locked one, making it essentially brand new. Unfortunately I've still not managed to unlock the iCloud locked one despite weeks of attempts... but I won't give up yet.
Camera
Perhaps it was impressive at the time it came out in 2013, but this 8 megapixel camera isn't as good as you'd expect from an iPhone. The colors look a bit pale, and it's not very good at capturing moving objects.
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The selfie camera isn't any better. At 2 megapixels, photos come out dark and grainy. I know it was 2013, but for a company that has always used its phone cameras as one of their USPs, it's definitely underwhelming.
Software and apps
The iPhone 5c can run iOS 7 to iOS 10.3.3. Old Apple devices lose most, if not all, Internet and iTunes connectivity. This makes it hard to browse the internet, watch YouTube, or download apps. On the iPhone 5c, you can still surf the web as of 2024, but other Internet features are limited.
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The YouTube app is able to show suggested searches related to the words you type, but when you hit enter, nothing loads. Issues like this can be fixed via jailbreak methods (I've tried on old iPads with success), so I assume the iPhone 5c just needs some work done for this functionality to be restored. Luckily, watching videos on the YouTube website works fine on Safari. |
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Google Maps wouldn't download despite being in my purchase history. This surprised me, because I managed to download it on a 2nd gen iPad running iOS 9, but somehow not an iPhone 5 running iOS 10. I use Google Maps on a daily basis so I'll need to find another roundabout way to download this if I want to use this phone as a primary cellphone in 2024. |
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To try out some games, I downloaded Jetpack Joyride, Subway Surfers, and Temple Run. JetPack Joyride worked great despite not being the latest version of the game. |
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Subway Surfers downloaded successfully but wouldn't let me play unless I updated to the latest version (not possible on this phone without jailbreak). This is a common issue with this game on iOS. The only exception I've come across is on the iPad 1st gen running iOS 5 - the app lets me play one round first before asking to be updated. Temple Run worked great. It somehow seemed to think I had the latest version downloaded when I didn't. It's one of those games that runs smoothly with no lag no matter the device I try it on. |
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Personal thoughts
Regardless or specs, this phone will always be special to me because I was a huge fan of it as a child. The great news is that my current sim provider IS compatible with this phone, so I might use this as a primary cellphone for a week or so. I'm an Android person, but this might be worth it, just for the nostalgia.
Since iOS is harder to bypass than Android, every time I successfully get an Apple device to work like new, it feels like a huge accomplishment. 😃 To factory reset the passcode locked phone, I used the youtube tutorials below as guides. All you need is a PC, the latest version of the iTunes PC app, and the phone's charging cable. This method failed several times before it worked. Sometimes it's really just a matter of repeating the same thing multiple times until it eventually works.
Thank you to these videos for helping me unlock this phone: