New Apple iPhone 5C pre-orders are available today, September 13, and have been since 3am ET this morning. The iPhone 5S, the next-generation flagship device, won’t be available until September 20 during which the 5C pre-orders will be filled and shipped as well. It was initially thought the 5S pre-orders would also be available at 3am ET this morning but they won’t be hitting the retail shelves until the 20th. The iPhone 5C will be sold by all major U.S. carriers for $99 (16GB) with a two year contract

Apple announced the 5S’s low-cost little brother at its release event earlier this month, using the 5C as a segway to break into a new middle-to-low-end smartphone market that it’s not familiar with. Still, photos and specs of the 5C point to a formidable handset with able software and a bright new design.

Underneath the steel-reinforced polycarbonate shell, a seamless piece of plastic that will come in a spectrum of neon colors, will be Apple’s signature A6 processing chip running the show. A 4-inch Retina display with integrated touch supports full sRGB widescreen video. The 8MP iSight camera comes with BSI, hybrid IR filter, and a 5-element lens. A new FaceTime HD camera works well in lowlight with tis 1.9micron pixel lens.

The 5C will come with support for LTW bands, dual-band Wi-Fi, and BlueTooth 4.0.

For the green at heart out there, the iPhone 5C is completely arsenic, mercury, and Android free (Apple’s joke, not mine).

Though not quite up to snuff with Apple’s iPhone 5S–it runs on a new 64-bit A7 processing chip in tandem with an M7 GPU, and is equipped with an 8MP iSight camera, and a new fingerprint sensor–the 5C is poised to be a great smartphone for newcomers and Apple users who aren’t quite ready to break the bank of an all-out device. For 16GB at$99, the 5C could be the steal of year.

For those looking to pre-order or have already pre-ordered the iPhone 5C, let us know your first impressions of the gadget and what drew you to it.