I am using smartphones for years and I will be using them for years to come, as I don't see any point of coming back to a Nokia 3310, but I somehow miss something from the 3310 era and that is the price of the phones, which is currently close to a second hand car. Well, they're smartphones of course, but are they that smart and do they deliver that much for the buck? Especially the $1000+ flagships like the iPhone X or the Samsung Note 9 which are the cream de la creme in both android and IOS categories.
Besides the technological improvement that every new flagship model benefits off there's always in almost every new flagship at least a $50 price increase over the years, for every new model, and the one which broke the ice of $1000 was of course the iPhone. Who could do that better than Apple? I've had a X in my hands a couple of times and I can say that the build quality is specifically iPhone, top notch, with a notch, but I wouldn't pay 1000 bucks on it because it's simply not worth it. Period.
I own a Samsung Galaxy S7 for almost two years and am pretty satisfied about it from the first day I started using it, wishing at the same time that I will be able to use the Sammy for even double this amount of time, if any update doesn't ruin it, but I don't feel cheap next to a X or a Note 9 either. Yes, they have some fine touches here and there in the improvements department comparing them with mine, but not worth of $500, in my opinion which is the price of mine as new.
So, why do people buy these news spicy flagships every year and are OK with paying the price of a second hand car on a fragile gadget that does almost anything a $300 one is capable off?
Advertising and trends. As well as in the case of clothes and fashion people don't usually use their stuff till the end and they rather buy a new one to go with the flow. Even in monthly payments. One that was advertised in the hands of he and she and promises to outperform everything you've got and change your life...till next year, which actually doesn't.
Now, that I mentioned about fashion I also think that smartphones have gradually become a part of the clothing one also as they're shinier, more colorful and more expensive with every trend and generation they get. Same as clothing trends. And that could be the main reason why most of the people who pay $1000+ on a smartphone do that. Conscious or unconscious. I've seen tens of examples when people bought the new model because...well it looks different or it has a slightly better camera while their previous smartphone worked perfectly fine and could have lasted for at least another year. But yeah...it's the new one for a new me.
I am thinking though, if now by 2018, a phone( in our case a smartphone) is worth a thousand bucks how much will we pay for one in 2025`? Am I gonna afford a flagship anymore, by that time, cuz I am not planning on leasing it. It's not a car, after all, but it surely becomes almost as valuable as a second hand one with every years price increase which is not always "backed by science". Plus many flagship users don't even squeeze the most out of it, mainly browsing social media with it, taking pics and texting. All worth of a $1,000...
What do you think about the thousand dollars smartphones, are they worth the money or we're paying a lot of marketing when buying one?
Thanks for your attention,
Ace