You Don’t Need A 1000$ Smartphone.
There was once a time when smartphones brought something new to the table with each passing year. And with those changes, came price hikes. Now, the changes have faded into obscurity while the prices have started burning holes in our pockets.
So the question arises: Should we be spending a 1000$ on smartphones every year? Perhaps not.
With leading smartphone makers running out of ideas to help their flagship devices stand out, it has lead to their plateauing. They all offer the same specifications with some slight tweaks here and there.
In the end, it comes down to differences in camera and display quality that the average consumer would never notice. And if that doesn’t help, it comes down to the subjective preference of the Operating System.
People are realizing that as well.
If you look at the best-selling Android smartphone for 2020, it was the Samsung Galaxy A51 which had a launch price of around 340$. Compare that to their flagship for 2020, the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, (Yes, that is the real name) which launched for a whopping 1500$. That’s a price gap of a bit more than 1000$. For that kind of money, you could buy the regular S20. iPhones are a different story as they are the only phones running IOS. As such, they don’t have much competition when it comes to the consumers who have only used Apple products. The fact that the iPhone 12, SE, and Mini all outsold the A51 despite being costlier while also not providing a charging brick proves that. You’re welcome environment.
But even then, people are still spending the big bucks on smartphones. For some people, it comes down to having the satisfaction of having the best product in the market. For others, it might be a status symbol. But for many, it comes down to simply being unaware of other products. The big boys are marketed on a much greater scale than the lowly mid-rangers and from a business standpoint, it makes sense. They prey on the ignorance of a majority of their consumers so that they can have better-looking graphs.
The plateauing of flagships has led to the mid-range market becoming a competitive space. The reason for getting a top-of-the-line phone in the past was to get the best of the best when it comes to camera, performance, display, build quality, you name it. But now, the gap is much narrower. The fact that the Pixel 5 released in the mid-range market attests to that fact. (The inability of Google to make it in the flagship market being another reason).
Now, the photos taken on a mid-range smartphone look very good when compared to a few years ago. But when you compare the flagship cameras from the last couple of years, you have to look at the night shots to tell any real differences. It’s a testament to how far mobile photography has come. But it also points to the fact that these companies are running out of things to improve upon. The 100x zoom camera on the S20 Ultra is proof enough of how great marketing beats actual usability.
So you’re okay with the camera quality on mid-rangers. But what about performance? You don’t want to be left frustrated 2 months into your life with the new smartphone when it starts acting all laggy and unresponsive. After all, the superior processors on the Top-spec devices do show better numbers on all the benchmark tools. Unless you like bragging about having higher benchmark scores, these numbers really don’t mean much with regards to the day-to-day experience of an average user. Having a better processor helps when you game or when you want to do some small-scale editing on your phone. You don’t need peak performance to browse through social media.
The decision by Apple to renounce the charging brick due to ‘environmental concerns’ was met with skepticism from both the tech community as well as its competitors. Fast forward a couple of months, and the Samsung Galaxy S21 released without a charging brick. It is very reminiscent of the time Apple decided to forgo the headphone jack. It’s looking more and more likely that we’ll be seeing every major company displaying its love for the environment in the coming years.
They know they can get away with it because a majority of people do not care. They know that their customers will keep on buying what is basically the same product year after year. They have made removal of basic functions ‘innovative’.
The best choice you can make in the current market is to buy a mid-range smartphone or to go for a flagship from the previous years. But if you plan on holding on to your 1000$ smartphone for more than 3 years, then by all means go ahead. That is when it is worth it.
So the question remains: Do you need a 1000$ smartphone?
