iPhone 5S question

[supton]

Toying with getting an iPhone 5S from Target for $200 as I find my old LG39C just doesn't do much of anything very well. Lousy camera etc. Plus its battery is in due of replacing, as it won't hold a charge past about 3 days. I realize it's about $20 for a battery, but it's tempting to get the same iOS experience on my phone as my tablet. Same apps etc. Same cable connector. But a vastly better camera with flash.

Question: what should I expect for battery life? I'd have cell and bluetooth on, WiFi off. No real usage, pretty much continuous standby. My LG39C would go 5+ days like this, at least until recently.

I did stop at Walmart this morning, and the larger 4.7" screens are indeed nicer; but I don't think it's worth $400-500 for a phone, not to me. I'd rather spend $500 on a new iPad Mini 4 7" tablet, and get a new battery for my Android. Ultimately a 7" screen hits a great balance of portability and usability; but even still, it's a bit too large to pocket carry most of the time. So seeing a $200 option is kinda tempting. [I do have a point and click camera which I use occasionally, but it runs on AA's and gets about 10 pictures using flash before the batteries toss low battery warning.]

 

[John_Conrad]

Greetings:
My wife and son have both had 5's for about 2 years. They are excellent phones in my opinion, (i still have a 4s-great phone too). Their battery life is of course dependent on the use of the phone. When they are using wifi, they will burn through the battery and we use wifi all the time to use our lap tops to get on line from home we just have to watch the battery and recharge as needed. That having been said the batteries on these phones have been fool proof for us.

I found the below article helpful and hope you will too:

http://www.iphonehacks.com/2013/09/tips-improve-iphone-battery-life.html

good day

 

[RedOakRanch]

I'm in the same boat thinking about my daughter's first phone. It's crazy that a phone that is 4 models old is still $200. Android phone of similar specs are $50. With all that being considered I'm leaning toward going all out for a starter phone, the iPhone SE 64gb for $449. I don't want to start with an out of date phone.

 

[Andrew1972]

The iPhone 5/5s is a great phone except camera. It runs apps really well.

The reason your android likely ran that long is you likely ran few apps that had background polling that you may be tempted to run on the iPhone or modern android as they actually work well. You can can of course shut off background stuff but not sure you make it 5 days.

Don't waste your money on a iPhone 4/4s as they are slow in many ways including using bandwidth so every thing is painfully slow. The difference from iPhone 5 to iPhone 6/iPhone SE/iPhone 7 is less profound in terms of speed. However audio quality is superior on iPhone 6 and above because it supports voice over LTE instead of outdated audio quality going back to flip phones. I talk a lot on iPhone6/ iPhone 7 for work and call clarity is amazing.

 

[supton]

Good to know about running voice over data (is data called LTE now?). Of course I can't use data when I'm home, or any where near home. So I plan to leave data off the vast majority of time--plus I'd be on a prepaid plan so I don't have much data to use at all. I've managed to amass 1 or 1.5GB of data over the years, as I get 180MB every 90 days.

Huh, didn't realize you have to turn off apps to kill them. I had been doing that on my phone, but never on my iPad--no wonder why my iPad has been running low lately; there's a couple of apps in the background that I haven't touched in 6+ months. One I think was from a year ago... Closed a bunch, maybe the battery will stop dying so fast (and maybe webpages will load properly now?).

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: madRiver
The iPhone 5/5s is a great phone except camera. It runs apps really well.


What's wrong with the camera? My iPad Mini seems to do ok, no flash and as the lighting conditions go down it gets progressively worse. I was hoping to have something similar to that. No point&click level of quality, but suitable for most quick pictures.

 

[Andrew1972]

Originally Posted By: supton
Originally Posted By: madRiver
The iPhone 5/5s is a great phone except camera. It runs apps really well.


What's wrong with the camera? My iPad Mini seems to do ok, no flash and as the lighting conditions go down it gets progressively worse. I was hoping to have something similar to that. No point&click level of quality, but suitable for most quick pictures.


The camera is superior to an iPad so if you are happy with that. iPhone 6 and 7 rival and sometimes exceed a point in click because of superior processing in image quality.

 

[supton]

Gotcha. My LG39C is a 3 megapixel camera (and doesn't do very well), my iPad is 5.0 megapixel, and the iPhone 5S is 8.0 megapixel. But the 6/7 is 12 megapixel, and I think those have increased stability options.

 

[Fsharp]

I'd highly recommend against an iPhone 5S as $200 is way to much for a three and a half year old phone which probably has only a year or two before it stops being supported by the latest iOS update. My 6 Plus is noticeably slower on iOS 10 than 9 so I assume 5S would be terrible. I wouldn't get an iPad mini 4 either because I find them to be too big to carry in a pocket, yet too small to enjoy using at home.

If I were you I'd get a 6S Plus or 7 Plus. Yes a 6S Plus starts at $650, but will be one superior device instead of two infererior ones. It has an awesome camera with optical stabilization, screen big enough to be almost a tablet yet still fits in your pocket, big battery, 4G capable not wifi like iPad, and a fast processor to ensure it won't be obsolete any time soon.

You don't neccessarily have to shut down apps in iOS to save battery, just shut off background app refresh in settings for all but neccesary apps.

Also, make sure your location services are set to "while using" not "always" for everything you can.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: Fsharp
I'd highly recommend against an iPhone 5S as $200 is way to much for a three and a half year old phone which probably has only a year or two before it stops being supported by the latest iOS update. My 6 Plus is noticeably slower on iOS 10 than 9 so I assume 5S would be terrible. I wouldn't get an iPad mini 4 either because I find them to be too big to carry in a pocket, yet too small to enjoy using at home.

If I were you I'd get a 6S Plus or 7 Plus. Yes a 6S Plus starts at $650, but will be one superior device instead of two infererior ones. It has an awesome camera with optical stabilization, screen big enough to be almost a tablet yet still fits in your pocket, big battery, 4G capable not wifi like iPad, and a fast processor to ensure it won't be obsolete any time soon.

You don't neccessarily have to shut down apps in iOS to save battery, just shut off background app refresh in settings for all but neccesary apps.

Also, make sure your location services are set to "while using" not "always" for everything you can.


That is an interesting counterpoint.

On my 3.8" phone I found I couldn't surf the web. I've never tried a 4.7" screen, but have assumed it to be just as bad. My 7" iPad though seems ok. The 1024x768 screen is kinda small but gets the job done; plus when I want to do real "work" I just go to a laptop or desktop. Not getting any younger so I worry about reading 4 point font. I've wondered about the full sized iPad but it seems a bad size to me: won't fit in any pocket, kinda large to sit on the couch with. Too small to hold and type on. The mini is book sized which is quite carry-able; and battery life has been ok.

But you are right, 5S can't possibly be supported much longer. My iPad no longer is, won't go past 9.3 or whatever.

 

[IndyIan]

I just got a new cheap 5s a few months ago. I use alot of wifi and the kids use it almost every night so I charge it everyday.
I had a 6s for work and haven't really minded going back to the smaller screen, and it seems to run fast enough. With the SE having the same screen size apps should support that for quite a while. The big hang up will be that the 5s only has 1 GB of RAM and the SE and above have 2, and eventually apps and the ios will bloat to fill 2.
Pics seem to be good enough, but I haven't made any posters with them either. We seem to be an Apple family so with the 5s available for reasonable money, I wasn't going rock the boat and get a different phone and figure out how to sync calendars, photos, apps, notes, etc across platforms. Right now I just let my wife set it all up how she likes which works well for both of us!

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: IndyIan
Right now I just let my wife set it all up how she likes which works well for both of us!


Ditto! Wife does the same, although we haven't gotten to the point of shared calendars etc. Still have a print calendar on the fridge that tells me when to pick up kids and what to have for dinner.

Our kids have iPod Touch's, as does the wife. They seem to like them, although the kids do have DS's now also. Have a Windows machine for school work though.

*

A GB of RAM would be an upgrade for me, 2 would probably rock my world. I looked, and last month I did have to empty my iPad of podcasts and pictures, as I had filled my 16GB. Got it pared down to 9.6GB used, 2.8 open. Which is why I was thinking the 64GB iPad Mini 4 would be nice to replace my iPad Mini, 4x the space and 4x the RAM. A 16GB phone might get full of pictures, then again I wouldn't want to store them for long on my camera.

 

[440Magnum]

Originally Posted By: Fsharp
I'd highly recommend against an iPhone 5S as $200 is way to much for a three and a half year old phone which probably has only a year or two before it stops being supported by the latest iOS update.


I kinda agree with this. I say "kinda," because I have a 5S, love it, and have absolutely NO plans to replace it. Apple tends to write new OS's to at least support older platforms for a long time (in some cases with a horrible performance penalty as happened to the iPhone 3, in other cases performance actually improves a little, which is what my 5S did with iOS 10).

But, $200 is a bit much to be paying for a phone this late in its life-cycle. By the time I do retire my 5S, I'll have had it at least 5 years probably closer to 6- but 3.5 of those are already behind me right now so you'll be lucky to be wanting to keep yours in 2 years. $100/year? That's no bargain. It really amounts to the same or a little higher cost/year as I have, having paid a typical new-phone price for my phone when it was actually new.

 

[CharlieBauer]

I got the 5s for the kids in late 2015 for $150. Upgraded them to the 6s Plus a couple of weeks ago.

The screen size and processor / memory upgrade ie speed as well as camera improvement and 3d touch are all appreciated.

Apple no longer sell the 5s. The 5SE is the model with the sufficient processor and memory required for future customer satisfaction.

 

[supton]

Sounds like it's best to hold off: $200 is too much for an old phone. I'll just buy another battery for my Android. $650 is too much for a phone, for my tastes.

Thanks!

 

[Fsharp]

Probably smart to hold off. I do think you'd like the 5.5 inch iPhones however.

 

[Rand]

The 5se is available around 350-400$

It has the A9 and is not really related to the 5s.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: Rand
The 5se is available around 350-400$

It has the A9 and is not really related to the 5s.


Still pretty expensive, for a phone. I get the idea, $100/year isn't a bad amortization. Problem is, I'd expect 6 years out of a $600 phone; and all it takes is one good drop, or for it to drop out of a pocket and be lost, to become very sad.

 

[Nick1994]

I had a 5s. 3 days would probably be close to max for battery life at low use.

Look into the iPad Air 2. Apple's website shows $399 for the 32gb and $399 for the iPad Mini 4 32gb.

It's an absolutely no-brainer, get the iPad Air. It's bigger but definitely not too big. I've had 2 iPad minis. First one I lost, second one I gave to my sister. I currently have an iPad Air and an iPad Pro (which I am typing on now). Once I used the iPad Air, the mini is way too small. Much easier on the eyes to read. My iPad Pro is the 9.7" so same size as an Air/ Air 2.

 

[supton]

Nick, how do you type on the larger iPads? I've just used my thumbs on mine; and when I want to touch-type I get a Bluetooth keyboard (wifey just got me a Logitech M780 for Christmas, very nice if not heavy and large).

I wouldn't buy a 32GB iPad. Problem with storage is, a user tends to use an exponential curve to their usage. While it took me 3 years to fill up the ~13GB of storage I have on my iPad, I suspect the second 13GB would take a year. Or IOW a 32GB would be full potentially after 2-3 year's time.

I should probably look at something Windows or Android, something with removable storage; but after several years of not doing anything OS related (no anti-virus stuff, no backups, etc -- just the occasional OS update, which it does on its own) I'm not sure how much I want to get back to Windows malarky.