Apple to Kill iPhone 5c in Favor of Two iPhone 6 Models (Report)

Although the iPhone 5c is one of Apple’s newest smartphones, the company may cut it out of the lineup completely in favor of the iPhone 6. A new report from the South China Morning Post says that Apple will discontinue its colorful handset when it introduces two new smartphones in September.

The Chinese publication claims to have spoken with “two insiders” who have seen prototypes of Apple’s forthcoming handsets. Apple will reportedly stop selling the iPhone 5c and will continue selling its current flagship, the iPhone 5s. although it will be made from cheaper materials. This isn’t too different from Apple’s strategy when it launched the iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s in September and axed the iPhone 5 from its lineup.

MORE: iPhone 6 Rumors: Inside Apple’s Next Big Thing

Despite Apple’s aggressive marketing efforts, from its colorful New York City billboard campaign to its homepage redesign, the iPhone 5c hasn’t been a hot seller. During Apple’s most recent quarterly conference call,  CEO Tim Cook said that demand percentage “turned out to be different than we thought.” The Wall Street Journal also previously reported that Apple will cut the iPhone 5c from its lineup later this year. 

The report continues to echo rumors we’ve heard in the past about Apple’s future plans for the iPhone line. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company will supposedly roll out two new iPhones, one with a 4.7-inch display and another with a 5.5-inch screen with 426 ppi. Apple is also expected to outfit its next smartphone with a sturdy scratch-resistant sapphire glass display.

Apple has been rumored to enter the phablet market since before it launched the iPhone 5s last September. Back in June, Reuters reported that Apple was experimenting with 4.7-inch and 5.7-inch displays for future mobile devices.

The jump in display size would pit Apple’s handsets directly against its biggest competitors, the Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3, which come with roomy 5-inch and 5.7-inch displays compared to the iPhone’s 4-inch screen. The Galaxy S5 is also rumored to get a 5-inch screen.

“There probably will be a larger screen iPhone at some point,” said Avi Greengart, research director for consumer devices at Current Analysis, when we asked about Apple’s future plans several months ago. “The speculation is really simple. We’ve seen that there is concerted consumer demand for larger displays.”

Apple is expected to announce its iPhone 5s successor in September 2014, but we should hear about Apple’s next mobile platform, iOS 8, this June.

via The South China Morning Post

Lisa has been reporting on all things mobile for Laptopmag.com since early 2013. When she’s not reviewing gadgets, she’s usually browsing patent databases or interviewing experts to track down the hottest tech trends before they even happen. Lisa holds a B.A. in Journalism from SUNY Purchase and has contributed to The International Business Times, The New York Daily News and Guitar World Magazine.

From Laptopmagazine. Product reviews and advice for best reference

HP Envy 5530 e-All-in-One review: Home printer has print quality and cheaper inks in its favor

The $130 HP Envy 5530 e-All-in-One color inkjet multifunction (copy/print/scan), will cover a low volume of home use nicely. It's exceptionally easy to use, surprisingly capable, and produces impressive output. On the downside are its lack of speed and pricey inks, but HP’s new Instant Ink program might help that somewhat.

The HP Envy 5530 is rather compact for a multifunction printer. The scanner lid is so thin that at first glance, you might not recognize it as such. However, there’s an A4/letter-sized scanner on-board, and it produces good-looking copies and scans. You can even push-scan to a PC across the network—not a feature you see in every printer at this price point.

The Envy 5530 offers automatic duplexing, which isn’t a guarantee in this price range. Everything else about the paper handling is pretty modest: just 100 sheets (input) and 30 sheets (output)—if having printed pages fall right on top of blank pages counts as an output area. If you print any more than 200 pages per month, you should be looking at a more robust machine.

Setting up the HP Envy 5530 is easy whether you use USB or Wi-Fi, and thanks to a 2.65-inch touchscreen and exceptionally well thought out menus, so is operation. The display and all the controls are on the top left of the unit, and intuitively arranged. The only other feature worth mentioning is the SD card slot for direct printing and off-loading scans.

HP doesn't bundle a lot of software with the Envy 5530, but what's there is easy and capable. The driver and scanning utilities are nicely rendered and offer all the features most users need. There's also the now usual suite of remote printing options, including HP ePrint via email and Apple AirPrint.

While the assumption is that this printer isn’t going to be used much, it still bears mentioning that the Envy 5530 is pretty slow. It managed an anemic 5.9 pages per minute (ppm) printing plain text and a few simple, monochrome graphics on both the PC and Mac platforms. Snapshot-sized, 4-by-6-inch photos printed at about 2.5 ppm to plain paper, but to glossy paper that slowed to 0.8 ppm. Full-sized photos printed at about 0.4 ppm on glossy paper, while copies exited at about 3 ppm. Scan times are bearable, albeit two to three times longer than what you'll see from top-shelf units.

Along with minimal paper capacity and slow performance, the Envy 5530 suffers (as most low-cost printers do) from expensive ink. At least if you buy on your own: The standard 61 series black and tri-color cartridges cost $15 and $21 respectively, yet last for only 199 and 165 pages. That's 7.5 cents per page for the black and 12.75 cent per page for the colors, or a daunting 20.15 cents per four-color page. You can reduce those costs considerably with the $30 black and $32 tri-color 61XL cartridges, to about 16 cents per four-color page, but black still comprises a high 6.25 cents of that amount.

As to that "buy on your own" comment, the Envy 5530 is eligible for HP's new Instant Ink service. With Instant Ink, HP sells you massively capacious ink cartridges, then doles the ink out on a monthly basis. You can print 50 pages of anything—a bit of text, or a heavy-coverage photo for a flat fee of $3 a month (6 cents per page), while 100 pages costs $5 a month (5 cents per page), and 300 pages are $10 (3.3 cents per page). That's a whole lot cheaper than manual user replacement, but only if you print fairly close to the number of pages in the plan. If you barely print 100 pages a year, then just buying the cartridges on your own might be a better deal. Also, the whole Instant Ink deal depends on your printer having an Internet connection, and your being comfortable with HP’s managing your printer in the background.

Along with ease of use, the Envy 5530's other major strength is its output quality. Text is clear and sharp, even in draft mode, and color graphics are also surprisingly accurate. You might want to tweak the photo settings a bit for a warmer color temperature on glossy photos, but other than that it's all good.

The HP Envy 5530 is in many ways a typical home printer: It’s somewhat slow, with adequate features, and its low purchase price is balanced out by higher-priced inks. However, its Instant Ink program is intriguing for its savings potential, and its output quality and ease of use are distinctly better than usual for this price class. It’s well worth considering for a home user.

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