Moto E LTE vs iPhone 5/C

Aniallation · February 6, 2016

So I've been using relatively large phones compared to my hand size for quite a while (few months now) and now that I go back to a 4.3" phone (1st gen Moto E of my uncles) I realize how much more comfortable/ergonomic a smaller phone is for me. Also, stepping down to a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon 200 and still having it be perfectly fine makes me remember how much horsepower I don't need in a phone. So, I'm looking to downgrade (from my current Zenfone 2) to something smaller and lower end.

I loved my 2nd gen Moto E. It fit perfectly in my hand and pockets, had amazing battery life, a pretty good front-facing speaker, and with a pretty powerful Snapdragon 410 only needing to drive a 540p screen on software with pretty much zero bloat performance was actually astonishing. That thing flew and was actually snappier in daily light usage than skinned flagship phones (S6 and G4 for sure). One major letdown was that it didn't have a camera flash, though. Although I don't ever actually take pictures in the dark, it's annoying when I could really use a flashlight, hence why I didn't hold on to it. The form factor and great performance for the price are wanting to make me go back though, and it would cost me about $80 CAD which I definitely feel is fair and easy on the wallet.

The other option would be an iPhone 5 or 5C. Personally, I don't mind iPhone/iOS, it gets the job done for my daily usage just as well as Android. The iPhone has the obvious benefit of having a camera flash, but it also has a better camera, looks nicer, is generally more powerful, and has much better headphone volume output (I likely won't have to carry around a separate Fiio E06 like I do for Android phones as most aside from HTC aren't loud enough for me) which I can definitely appreciate, but wouldn't say are mandatory. On the other hand though, battery life is noticeably worse to me, and it's a lot more expensive, over twice the cost of the Moto E LTE, coming in at around $200 CAD for an unlocked one, not including the costs of getting some extra Lightning cables for the car and to carry around at school.

So really, the only benefit to me going for the iPhone would be having that camera flash and I guess the convenience of better headphone output. And I guess more case selection. I'm not really sure that's really worth paying three times the cost for though, seeing as it's not really worth it for just those two benefits personally. What do you guys think?