Apple iPhone 5s
Phone Scoop Review
Sep 23, 2013 by Eric M. Zeman
Apple's latest iPhone offers an improved camera, fingerprint sensor, and powerful processor in the same body as last year's phone. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
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Still A Great Phone
Carrier: AT&T
Have had my 5s for quite some time now and it's still a great phone. It's fast, display is great, camera is wonderful, touch ID is accurate. Still competes with the newer iphones. If you're looking for a compact phone, this is it.
Battery life isn't great, but that's to be expected with the size of it. Audio quality could be louder, both for calls and speakers
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I LOVE this phone!
Carrier: Verizon
The iPhone 5S is a very good alternative to the iPhone 6, it offers a brilliant 4 inch 1136 x 640 pixel resolution, 326 ppi display, and display's colors vividly and beautifully, 4G LTE is blazing fast on this phone as well as the Verizon coverage, Touch ID is a very cool feature, and the Large pixel 8-Megapixel camera and Tru-Tone Flash is very clear and bright, battery life on this phone is however a little short but still very good, also about an hour into the phone a game froze and crashed several times, but when working correctly offers very high quality graphics with the Apple A7 Processor, all in all this is a very solid device and I highly recommend it.
Pros: Display, Camera, Touch ID, Ease Of Use, Speed, Design, iOS 8.
Cons: Battery Life, App Crashes.
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I HATE this phone
Carrier: Verizon
My company does not support Android so I had to buy an iphone 5s. All the iphone users promised "I would love it!". The only serious pros this phone has are (1) it's thin, light and nice-looking and (2) it has a very good camera/camera app.
I can't stand it. Here are the reasons why:
1. I can't use data (email/txt) while on a phone call (I am on Verizon). WTF? seriously? I have been able to do this for 10 years with Windows and Android phones. Definitely the worst thing about this crappy phone.
2. No replaceable battery. HUGE problem because the battery life is not great. So I have to carry cables and battery packs instead of just being able to pop in a fresh battery which is a lot easier and more compact.
3. Can't transfer files to/from phone (other than pictures) without using iTunes. Seriously annoying. I should be able to plug media in my computer and be able to read it without any additional software, PERIOD. Don't understand what purpose this serves other than making customers beholden to Apple services; this principle really pisses me off.
3. No removable media. I want to add video files for my kid to look at but the files are really big. With other phones, I just bought a nice big microSD card and I was in business. Not so with iphone. It does come with a lot of internal storage but its still something I have to think about/monitor which I find annoying.
4. Call volume. Its very low and hard to hear someone in a noisy environment. Really annoying especially if you are using the phone mostly for business.
5. Battery life. It's not great. Can barely get through my day which leads me to gripe #2 above.
6. io7. Buggy at times. Will reboot itself randomly. I found it got much better when I removed some apps but that's not the kind of thing that you should need to do.
7. Siri. Nice idea but poor execution. Useful only about 20% of the time. With that low hit rate, why bother? I rarely use it anymore.
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Iphone 5s
Carrier: Verizon
I just upgraded to the Iphone 5s from the Iphone 4s. I love everything about the Iphone 5s. It takes great pictures the applications run faster on this phone. It don't lag. The only thing I would complain about is the battery dies verily quick if you are playing a game or running applications like facebook.
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Cannot do simultaneous voice and data on Verizon; Seriously?
Carrier: Verizon
I was briefly considering jumping ship from android...got the iPhone 5s on Verizon and well, it was an iPhone...what can I say...good phone overall, good camera, fingerprint security worked very well, battery just meh; OK.
Then I discovered the deal breaker, the phone cannot do simultaneous voice and data on Verizons network!
Verizon blames Apple, Apple blames Verizon.
Returned and back on android, cause it just works.
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This phone is great!
Carrier: AT&T
I bought this phone a couple of weeks ago and I really love it. Here are the pros and cons of the device.
PROS:
- large, bright display
- capacitive touch screen
- world phone
- audio quality
- small and light weight
- a wide variety of applications available to download
- great camera
- fast
CONS:
None
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Was expecting more...
Carrier: Verizon
After using my 4s for the whole 2 years (first time i've ever kept a phone for the full contract) the battery was finally starting to fade and I decided to upgrade. I was tempted by the Galaxy S4, but after going through a few LG ally's and Droids the Android interface has left a bad taste in my mouth. So I decided to stick with what has worked before and got the 5s. Maybe I was just expecting more but to me it was like basically trading a 2011 BMW for a 2013. A little more power, refinement and speed but overall the same BMW. Don't get me wrong I love the phone, but something tells me I should of just replaced the battery and kept my old 4s, and my unlimited 3g data plan...
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very poor reception
Carrier: Verizon
First of all let me preface this by saying that this is my first foray into "Appledom". As such it's like learning a new language and many of the problems I've experienced are due to my own ignorance of Apple.
Had a great deal of trouble setting up email on the 5s (as well as the ipad air). Many frustrating hours dealing with tech support and the apple store techies. Finally got it resolved when my own tech source figured out that with os7 it sets up email differently on a 5s than it does on an ipad! Go figure. Now as to the 5s itself, it's a very well built unit with lots of gee wiz features. If I just wanted to take pictures or play games, it's awesome. However Apple like many of it's competitors seem to forget that a phone is, all together now "for making phone calls!" Unfortunately everyone does not live in a major metro area. As such the 5s in suburban and rural areas drops calls frequently and has very poor reception. Seems Motorola is and always has been the only company that makes the radio portion (that which makes the calls) very strong.
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Love this phone!
Carrier: AT&T
It has been four years since I have had a smartphone and I just picked up this thing a week ago. I am very happy with it so far. I love the display, surfing the internet on it, and the speed is great. Typing on the keyboard is pretty easy, too. All in all, I am very happy with this device and I recommend it. However, the only thing I do not care much for is the finger print reader.
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Great Phone, but more attention to hardware detail needed
Carrier: AT&T
The 5S is a great and beautiful phone, but apple need to really pay much more attention to detail fitment with their volume and power buttons. Most are very loose. It took 3 returns before finally getting one with tight volume and power buttons. I wonder are they using iphone 5 equipment that is now out of tolerance. Also ios 7 is a step backwards in many ways. If you are on the phone and have call failure, once unlocking your phone it's starts to dial back automatic. Also on the earlier 6.0 version would automaticly clear out a missed call once you called the number or they called you back with ios 7 the number or name is still their once you call the missed call or they call you. ios 7 is lacking on both of these.
