Apple iPhone 5C announced and it is not the cheap iPhone everyone was expecting

For the past couple of months we spent nearly every day reporting, analyzing and reanalyzing hundreds of leaked photos and hands-on videos of the so-called cheaper iPhone. Moments ago, Tim Cook finally took the wraps off the Apple iPhone 5C at an event being held at the Cupertino campus.

“We believe the iPhone is an experience,” explains Apple’s design guru Jony Ive. “The iPhone 5C is beautifully and unapologetically plastic and multiple parts have been reduced to a single polycarbonate component, whose surface is continuous and seamless.” He adds, “It’s quite remarkable when something feels familiar and yet is new at the same time. That’s the iPhone 5C.”

To start with, the iPhone 5C replaces the iPhone 5. In terms of dimensions, the iPhone 5C is 124.4×59.2×8.97mm and weighs in at 133 grams. As we’ve reported many a times, the device is being offered in white, pink, yellow, blue and green color variants.

Talking of specifications, the device flaunts a 4-inch (1136×640 pixels) Retina display with support for 326ppi. It is powered by an A6 chip and includes features like an 8-megapixel iSight rear camera with f/2.4 aperture, LED flash, backside illumination sensor, five-element lens, panorama, autofocus and the ability to shoot 1080p videos at 30fps. Additionally it also includes a 1.2-megapixel front camera and a bigger battery that can survive through 10 hours of talk time on 3G and 250 hours on standby mode.

On the connectivity front, the device is said to support “more LTE bands than any other smartphone in the world”, dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. On the software front, not surprisingly, the device runs on iOS 7. Essentially, the iPhone 5C is an iPhone 5 in a polycarbonate plastic shell.

The iPhone 5C’s unsubsidized price is $549 (Rs 35,320 approximately) and $649 (Rs 41,750 approximately), which certainly does not make it the cheap iPhone everyone was expecting it to be. To complement the multiple-colored device, Apple has also designed special cases for the device which will cost $29 (Rs 1,850 approximately) apiece. Pre-orders for the device are set to begin later this month on September 13 and it will go on sale alongside the iPhone 5S on September 20 in select countries. Apple has not yet announced the launch date or price for the iPhone 5C in India.