The iPhone 5c is really an iPhone 5 in a new shell, with a few tweeks. Its build quality is great though. The 5s is a great handset also, aluminum body, its faster than the 5cin day to day use. For the cash it depends on what you can afford, if its a 16GB 5s vs a 32GB 5c go for the 5c. If you can afford the 5s with at least 32GB I would say that handset will give you a better expericence going forward. It has a better camera with dual flash and with its 64 bit processor it gives a nice speed boost it also has a co-processor for doing motion related calculations taking the weight off the main cpu. My wife has the 5c and I have the 5s the difference in picture quality and speed of handset is noticable. Just my take, I would say go with the 5s.