Lots of people say the iPhone 5s or Galaxy S5 are too expensive, especially those people who want to upgrade mid-term, or who accidentally broke their device, o

Lots of people say the iPhone 5s or Galaxy S5 are too expensive, especially those people who want to upgrade mid-term, or who accidentally broke their device, or who are buying for children or others. Or who want a less expensive plan. And as carriers start to prioritize or even promote bring-your-own plans (and make the actual cost more obvious), I suspect we're going to see a greatly increasing interest in lower cost devices. This is already happening as we move from smartphones being some sort of status symbol, to being tools. There is a kind of disconcerting elitism that appears in many discussions about smartphones and the smartphone market - one where we all need to pretend that money is no object, and we're all super rich and careless with our money (two traits, as an aside, that are usually in absolute competition with each other). Reality doesn't mirror that at all. Indeed, it's in stark contrast with the release of this very phone which has overwhelmingly been met with criticism that it is far too expensive (many thought it would be $0 on a standard plan, or even on a reduced rate plan).