5 ms·
It blows me away that people will spend $1k for a phone when there are good options for $500 or less. I will grant that Google's phone is probably the best. B
by georgeecollins 2y ago
It blows me away that people will spend $1k for a phone when there are good options for $500 or less. I will grant that Google's phone is probably the best. But in my experience the difference in quality does not correlate to the difference in price. Apple has a monopoly and they set price expectations.
Also, I think buyers think if you have a cheaper phone strangers may think you are poor. Personally I want people to think I am poorer than I am.
- grogenaut 2y agowhat are your favorite $500 or less options
- setgree 2y agoiphone se 2022 is $429
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jablala 2y agoHoping the SE 4 in the new year will be sub $500/£500.
- nordsieck 2y agoI got the SE 2 used, a year after it came out for a serious discount[1]. If that's something you're comfortable with, you can get a really good deal if you pay attention to what's posted on FB Marketplace. More than anything, I'm most impressed by Apple's OS support. I'm pretty convinced that SE phones are some of the best deals in the industry if you keep them until they run out of support. They have the same guts (minus cameras) as tier 1 flagship phones. Apple is a bit tight with ram, but the processor is faster than any Android phone. And the support - 7 years is standard right now, and it could very well go longer. --- 1. I think I paid $150 for it. It has a small crack in the screen, but just the part that's over the chin, not anything that affects the display. If I wanted a pristine phone, I'm sure I could have found one for a bit more. But after several years, I'm happy with my decision.
- jablala 2y agoThat's a cracking result! I'll definitely keep an eye out and hopefully the second hand market is healthy. I think the SE never really turned any heads from the flagship causing the second hand market to be lively. With these new touted SEs, they're looking to be as good as iPhone 14 (maybe pros) which has a very wide reach.
- setgree 2y agoditto, I bought a 2020 SE refurbished for <$200 and it's been totally fine. If it were better, I'd be using it more, which I don't want.
- jph 2y agoGoogle Pixel 8a is a great phone IMHO. Refurbished ones are available.
- kelleyk 2y agoIt is! If you also need service, Google Fi has had a promotion for a while that gives you the $500 purchase price back over 24 monthly bills. In fact, they also have a promotion right now where you can get $800 back on either the Pixel 9 or 9 Pro, spread over 24 months; that makes the 9 free and the 9 Pro only $200.
- amyjess 2y agoNot GP, but I just got a Sony Xperia 10 VI, and I'm loving it so far.
- bpye 2y agoSony seem to be abandoning the NA market which is kind of unfortunate. Their new Xperia 1 VI isn’t available in either the US or Canada.
- anonymoushn 2y agoMy iPhone SE is $429 apparently.
- ge96 2y agoIt's crazy where phones are at now. My $160 Motorola phone has 8GB of ram The camera is terrible though photos upon closer inspection appear smeared/blurry. My older Motorola which I paid more for has a better camera.
- wilsonnb3 2y agoYou can get flagship Android phones for $500 or less if you are a bit patient and have a good carrier. I just ordered a Galaxy S24+ from Google Fi for $450 and it's a better phone than the $1100 pixel 9 pro XL imo. 6 months from now and on days like Black Friday you'll be able to get the pixel 9 for less than $500.
- otterley 2y agoAre you including the extra $50/mo you pay your carrier for this privilege? There ain't no such thing as a free lunch; you can either pay up front or pay over time (and often more than you would otherwise).
- wilsonnb3 2y agoThe only thing I have to do is keep using the phone for 120 days. Monthly price for service is $20 plus $10 for each gig of data, unchanged by their phone price promotions. Don't even have to pay a fee to use a cellular smartwatch, as long as it is made by Google or Samsung.
- cvhc 2y agoI have been trading in my phone every year to get the new Samsung S2x (now S24) model since S21. There were always new model deals plus some regular cashback. I ended up paying <200 USD every year. It's like a manual phone upgrade plan. Not sure how long it could last. Last year the Google Fi deal wasn't as good and I almost missed the budget target.
- georgeecollins 2y agoOP here- my last two phones have been Moto G Power. I think the first one only cost $200! I value battery life and simplicity. As an Apple shareholder I prefer you buy an iPhone.
- grogenaut 2y agoI have a 5G Stylus rn, it's totally fine except I ruined the camera 3 days in so it takes TNG soft focus photos... love the G Power line, battery for days is not to be underappreciated
- losvedir 2y agoI bought a "renewed" iPhone 11 from Amazon a month ago for $230 and have been seriously impressed with it.
- varispeed 2y agoI have S21 Ultra and bought it refurbished for less than $500 few years ago. I see no reason why should I buy new phone. Seems like all those new features are just gimmicks. I would probably consider buying a new one if it had better video recording, but this Pixel only has 4k at 60Hz which wasn't impressive two years or so ago.
- bityard 2y agoMy cheap Android phone is in a cheap black case, nobody can tell how poor I'm not.
- nly 2y agoMy phone (£500/$500) was released in Nov 2017, bought in Feb 2018, and it's still just fine. Only recently have I been noticing the battery life is getting a bit pathetic. Spending £500 on a new one hasn't really entered my thoughts. The last time I went shopping for an (Android) phone with and for my girlfriend it was a nightmare - so many absolutely shit giant phones that don't feel right in the hand
- Liquix 2y agoifixit has exclusive deals with some manufacturers where you can get an OEM replacement battery + tools for ~$30-50. can easily double the lifespan of a well-maintained device
- nly 2y agoRecently did that with my laptop. Replaced the battery and fans and reapplied thermal paste to the processor for £100.
- taeric 2y agoI splurged for one of the flip phones not long ago. Thought I qualified for a discount that I evidently didn't qualify for. Oops. That said, I think it was 600ish. So, yeah, I don't know that I understand the high end market. At all.
- the_reformation 2y agoiPhones are 10x better than $500 Androids, so a steal at 2x the price.
- jdgoesmarching 2y agoPeople use their phones probably more than any other single item besides their home and bed. It’s not really that crazy, especially if you factor in camera upgrades for people that care about it.
- matthewfcarlson 2y agoIn terms of percentage of my day that I spent using X, my smartphone ranks pretty highly. More so than my TV, car, etc that are high budget items that you can spend a lot on.
- ryandrake 2y agoI think it's true for a lot of people, but not for everyone. There's not much my phone does for me that a laptop doesn't do better, and I probably use some form of desktop/laptop about 10X the amount of time I use my phone. Sometimes I forget where my (8 year old) phone is for days, and life trucks on, but I probably sit in front of a computer for hours a day and that's just for work. I guess I'm turning into an outlier. I personally could not even fathom spending $500 on a telephone let alone $1000. It's just not an important enough gadget in my life.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoFewer and fewer people own any computing device other than a phone.
- bpye 2y agoI don’t like spending $1k on a phone, but my iPhone 11 Pro lasted 4 years and the only reason I upgraded was because the 15 has USB-C. It would have needed a battery upgrade otherwise but modern phones do have much better longevity.
- KoolKat23 2y agoYou'll get the same mileage out of a €300-€400 Samsung.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- trilobyte 2y agoFor most people the amortized cost of a phone over its life is pretty small. If you spend $1000 on a phone and it lasts you 3 years, that's ~$28 a month. A lot of people spend that on coffee each month. The value they get out of their smart phone dwarfs most other big expenses.
- skapadia 2y agoRationalizing a purchase because the monthly payments are small is a terrible way to approach shopping. If you don't have the money to pay for it upfront, you can't afford it. Full stop. People actually finance their phones, believe it or not. It boggles the mind.
- notaustinpowers 2y agoPeople making an average hourly don't think of things that way. Paying $28/month for a phone provides much more liquidity for the unexpected, when the other option is spending over 25% of your months income, you're SOL if your car breaks for whatever reason, or you get a flat tire, or your water bill was unusually high.
- rd 2y agoSomething something cheap boot vs. expensive boot something something…
- advisedwang 2y agoThey're not saying finance a phone. They're saying $1000 is not that much for a device you use throughout every waking hour for several years. The monthly framing helps understand cost as a rate, as we experience value as a rate.
- drawfloat 2y agoOP wasn’t talking about a loan payment.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
- fkyoureadthedoc 2y agoI usually sell my $1k phone after a couple years so I end up paying much less than $1k in the end, while getting a better phone out of it than had I just bought the $500 phone up front. It blows me away that people actually care how much other people spend on something at all. Want a $50 flip phone? Cool. Want a $1300 fancy fold phone? Also fine. When I had my last kid we got a Snoo bassinet, $1300 or so. Anyone that saw it couldn't help but inform me that their baby survived in a trash bag with holes poked in it or whatever for a bassinet. But I sold it 6 months later for $900, and my overall $400 investment was very worth it. Thing was a miracle.
- nomel 2y ago> $400 investment Why is this word used to describe "pure financial loss" so often when talking about purchased luxury goods? > Investment: the outlay of money usually for income or profit
- crdrost 2y agoBecause the implication is that there is non-monetary profit. The person is describing it not as a loss but as an investment, because it was an investment in themselves and their ability to sleep at night and an investment in their child feeling safe and whatever other impossible-to-directly-price externalities were realized as a result of the monetary loss.
- nomel 2y agoI suppose the problem is that there isn't a good word for this concept. I just find it interesting that, in my experience, this is only used in relation to luxury goods.
- NoboruWataya 2y ago> in my experience, this is only used in relation to luxury goods. Not really. You can also "invest" in personal relationships, for example, which implies neither a financial outlay nor an expectation of financial return. When used in the context of purchasing consumer goods, I think it is most often used in the context of goods which are expensive (the financial outlay) and durable (ie, capable of providing enjoyment--analogous to profit--for a long time into the future). And of course those goods are more likely to be considered "luxury" goods.
- preisschild 2y agoI have a lot of data on my smartphone I want to be secure, plus I like the OLED screen for reading ebooks/watching videos and I also want to make great photos. Only Google Pixel devices tick those boxes, but at least you can buy older gen Pixels rather cheap (Google Pixel 6 Pro with similar camera setup as the Pixel 9 for example)
- pinkmuffinere 2y agoSomewhat tangentially, your comment made me realize there can be non-vain reasons to try and appear less poor than you are. Of course, when you’re really poor it’s probably unwise to use a new iPhone to achieve this deception.
- dotnet00 2y agoMost people spending $1k on their phone are either trading in their old phone if they upgrade often, or are upgrading every 2-3 years, which makes the cost not that crazy given how smartphones are often essentially a part of us nowadays with how much we rely on them.
- oezi 2y agoSince only Apple, Google and Samsung provide some realistic assurance of security updates, there aren't so many options left. If you don't want to spend 1k there is the Pixel 8a for half that price.
- PKop 2y agoWhy would that blow you away? $500 extra dollars for a better device people use everyday for at least a year or more. Especially around here, many make plenty of money that a $500 difference isn't that significant.
- bitwize 2y agoIs there a new, $500 or less, phone with 256 GB of Flash, an unlockabke bootloader, and good GrapheneOS, CalyxOS, or LineageOS support? Oddly enough I end up buying Google phones because I do not wish to put up with Google's shit.
- dtx1 2y agoGraphene only supports pixels.
- spacemanspiff01 2y agoSo I get pixel because of security and less software bloat, along with good custom ROM support. That being said, at least for me, my phone is the device I spend the most time with, whether articals, emails, books, podcasts etc. It is at least 5 hrs a day. This is probably an argument to spend less time on my phone, but the will is weak. But if I am spending a significant percentage of my waking life interacting with this single electronic device, a price difference of 500 dollars is not much, especially amortized over a 3 year period.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- f6v 2y agoYou can say that about anything: cars, headphones, appliances. To each their own. I can’t imagine using a 500 device in place of my 800 iPhone even though it would be “almost as good”. I can justify extra even for very small convenient features.
- VirusNewbie 2y agoSome of it is a status symbol. I don't know any well to do tech friends that buy expensive watches or jewelry, but are happy to drop 1k+ on a new phone every year.
- acchow 2y ago> It blows me away that people will spend $1k for a phone when there are good options for $500 or less Wait till you see how people spend $60k on a car when there are perfectly good options for $30k. And people also spend much more time with their phones than in their cars.
- georgeecollins 2y agoI don't disagree but.. 1) To me there is a lot more variety in cars than phones. An SUV is very different then a sports car or some luxury car. Phones vary a lot in OS (but people don't cross shop), a little in battery and a lot in camera. As a thought experiment, if you put me in a civic I will know I am in a civic and not a BMW in one second. If you gave me an iphone 10 or an iphone12. Or a google 8 vs google 10... You get my point. Yes Android is different then iOS but people are usually locked in. 2) In general people spend way too much on cars, either to buy capability they don't really need or can't use. Or to try and say something about themselves.
- kome 2y agoIt blows me away that people will spend $500 for a phone when there are good options for $150 or less. :0
- tootie 2y agoI think phones really stopped differentiating a few years ago. A $200 Motorola is extremely capable and does 99% of what normal people need. I bought a Moto G Power for my kid who always forgets to charge it because the battery lasts 3 days. That's more valuable than having 3 cameras and an AI chip.
- dangus 2y agoApple does not have a monopoly. They sell 27% of all smartphones. Samsung sells 24%. Xiaomi sells 12%.
- shortrounddev2 2y agoA galaxy a54 is like 50% of the price of an 24 but with like 80% of the specs and better battery life