I'm finally going to be moving into the 21st century and getting a smartphone. I've been getting by with a basic phone and iPod Touch, but communicating with people has become tough since I'm such a dinosaur

Anyway, we have the following options for a 32g phone (our touches are 32 gig)

4S - FREE
5S - $299
5C - $199

We are able to keep our Verizon Nationwide plan, which is about $25 a month cheaper than the new more everything plan, but will have to pay $20/month for 1000 texts each. I don't text all that much now, but I have a feeling that will change We have the family plan and it will be 2 smartphones and 1 basic phone.

Anyway, is there any phone you would recommend? My current iPod touch can't be upgraded beyond IOS 6x, so I don't want to get stuck with an old operating system with app upgrade issues in a year.

My rule of thumb with Apple products (especially if you plan to keep them for more than a year) is to get the newest version you can afford. That way, you'll continue receiving support updates for the longest time and you'll have the fastest hardware, which will continue to be able to run updated software versions.

The 5S has some significant hardware improvements over the others. If you're going to keep it for a while and have the money, I'd go with it. The 4S is now 2.5 (I think) years old, while the 5C is just a repackaged iPhone 5 (1.5 year old).

Apple plans obsolescence into all its devices, but they generally give them a 2-3 year lifespan.

$20/mo for 100 texts?
Oh well, if most of your friends have iPhones it will use iMessage instead which doesn't count towards your texts, but does use a trivial amount of data. Messages in blue are iMessage, messages in green are normal texts.

Having owned both the 4S and 5S I would recommend the 5S. You will be much less frustrated with it and can get more life out of it.

Didn't see $20 for 100 texts. That's highway robbery (and text message charges in general are highway robbery). We have unlimited texts in our Verizon family plan.

That's what I figured I was hoping the 5C wasn't that old. My current iPod Touch is 2.5 years old and still working fine. The issue I'm having is that planned obsolescence.

Oops, I left off a zero It should have been 1000 texts

I think both of you have convinced me to go with the 5S. I believe that was what I paid for my iPod Touch.

Thank you.

I really like my 5c, but at this point I would recommend the 5s or wait for the next one coming out soon.

That's still nuts.

I think you mean 5S?

Maybe her iPod Touch "fell off a truck"?

Well, by keeping our existing plan, we add 2gig of data each, and for $10 each, get 1000 messages each. The plan is almost $30 a month less expensive than going with the more everything plan. But I agree, it's nuts Good thing most of my friends have iPhones.

Nah, I mis-typed, again. It's the 5s That's what I get for posting while multitasking

It's $20 for both of us to have 1000 texts each. Agree it's still nuts.

Our plan is the old Nationwide family plan. The only option is to pay $10 each for 1000 messages, $20 each for 2000 messages, of $30 (total) for unlimited.

The iphone 6 will be coming out in Aug/Sept. and there's a decent chance that will result in a small price cut for the 5S, if you want to wait and see.

We thought about that, but quite honestly, it's becoming really difficult to communicate with people so we're just going to do it now.

Thank you!

I also want to that/apologize to everyone responding to me for my mis-types and confusing the heck out of people

If you can't wait, then 5S. IMHO it never makes sense to buy an old or underpowered model to save a small amount of money.

Mary - not sure how you use the smartphone. I've owned both 4s for two years and now the 5s since last November. I have about 40-50 apps installed, I travel internationally with it, use it for pretty much everything but on-line banking. eBay, PayPal, Skype, Google Voice, Yelp, Kayak....i buy and sell with it, book flights, use Dropbox and other iCloud storage apps, listen to music, watch movies [have 32gb model], etc. Plus I still run 7.0.6 as it is jailbroken with about 15 tweaks installed. Some of my older tweaks either are out-dated or don't work for 7.x.x.

Folks might scream at this but if you're on a budget - the 4s works just fine. The 5s is the top of the line but most apps can't tell the difference, IMHO. The one difference is my Vz 5s is factory unlocked which means I can use any sim card worldwide. If you get the 4s now it's probably on 7.1.x and you'll have to ask the carrier to unlock for you???

Good luck, you can't go wrong with either 4s or 5s. As others advised, forget the 5c...

Thanks. You raise some good points which we'll consider when we go to the verizon store.

FWIW - I hardly use the phone I have and use my iPod touch for email and apps. I don't know how much that will change once it becomes easier to use it for imessage/texts.