3 ms·

Surprising... The Moto E has an SD card slot, dual sim support, and a gorilla glass screen. I'm guessing they've got the price down by getting rid of the fron

Surprising... The Moto E has an SD card slot, dual sim support, and a gorilla glass screen. I'm guessing they've got the price down by getting rid of the front facing camera, and LED flash for the rear camera, probably cheaper build quality. But... that's a a great price!

sspiff 12y ago
They're also using a screen that's much cheaper, I think that explains a large part of the price difference.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  There's less internal storage, too, although the 4GB they saved costs them about $2 in component costs (~$4 out of retail price), since NAND flash is about $0.5 per GB now, and it's unfortunate most people don't realize this, and demand not to be ripped off on extra storage prices. That's why the OnePlus One managed to put another 48GB for only $50 more, while still making a nice profit (~$24 in component costs), while companies like Apple and Samsung still charge you $100 more for another 16GB that costs them only $8. For $100 more they should be offering offering another 128 GB, and it would still give them nice profits. They haven't changed their default storage prices since 2010, while prices have fallen by 30 percent per year, costing them 1/4 now of what it cost in 2010. Both Apple and Samsung continue to optimize for costs rather than quality - Samsung by refusing to use anything higher quality than their cheap sub-$1 per unit plastic cases, for their $600 phones (I'm pretty sure even this Moto E has higher quality case than Galaxy S5), and Apple by lowering their BOM cost with each new generation compared to the last, yet still keeping the prices just as high for everything. If they keep following this trend, iPhone 10 will cost them $100 to build, but they will still sell it for $650. My point is not that Apple doesn't keep adding stuff to their new phones or iPads, but that they are adding less than the average rate of technological progress. Ideally, a $650 device, would maintain roughly the same costs with each generation, because the company would use the best possible components and features for the same costs as last year. If they don't do that, it means they aren't properly optimizing for competitive quality and consumer value, and they shouldn't keep the retail price the same, and they should lower it accordingly.

sspiff 12y ago

They're also using a screen that's much cheaper, I think that explains a large part of the price difference.

higherpurpose 12y ago
There's less internal storage, too, although the 4GB they saved costs them about $2 in component costs (~$4 out of retail price), since NAND flash is about $0.5 per GB now, and it's unfortunate most people don't realize this, and demand not to be ripped off on extra storage prices. That's why the OnePlus One managed to put another 48GB for only $50 more, while still making a nice profit (~$24 in component costs), while companies like Apple and Samsung still charge you $100 more for another 16GB that costs them only $8. For $100 more they should be offering offering another 128 GB, and it would still give them nice profits. They haven't changed their default storage prices since 2010, while prices have fallen by 30 percent per year, costing them 1/4 now of what it cost in 2010. Both Apple and Samsung continue to optimize for costs rather than quality - Samsung by refusing to use anything higher quality than their cheap sub-$1 per unit plastic cases, for their $600 phones (I'm pretty sure even this Moto E has higher quality case than Galaxy S5), and Apple by lowering their BOM cost with each new generation compared to the last, yet still keeping the prices just as high for everything. If they keep following this trend, iPhone 10 will cost them $100 to build, but they will still sell it for $650. My point is not that Apple doesn't keep adding stuff to their new phones or iPads, but that they are adding less than the average rate of technological progress. Ideally, a $650 device, would maintain roughly the same costs with each generation, because the company would use the best possible components and features for the same costs as last year. If they don't do that, it means they aren't properly optimizing for competitive quality and consumer value, and they shouldn't keep the retail price the same, and they should lower it accordingly.