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Comment by ed_blackburn | Hacker News Reader

In the UK a new iPhone is ~£1250 there are so many more things I would rather spend that money on.

I spend so much time with my phone, I use it all day rely on it so much, it's the epicentre of my digital life.

But still, I think it's too expensive. I think once you touch the £1,000 mark you have to start proving far more worth than polished marketing. My work thankfully proved an iPhone 8, otherwise, I was going to buy an iPhone 6 or 7 [0]. I just cannot justify the extra money for the difference in the product.

[0] https://www.johnlewis.com/browse/electricals/mobile-phones-a...

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If you look at the performance testing between SOCs in the Apple and Android ecosystems, you'll see that the Apple cores from two years ago are still on par with the newest performance cores in the Android ecosystem and way ahead of Qualcomm's best.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13614/arm-delivers-on-cortex-...

If you buy an older iPhone, you're still going to get performance that is equivalent to a $1000 dollar Android flagship without the premium price.

Given that buying a brand new Pixel phone only gets you two years of OS updates, you're also going to get at least that much support after the sale.

Does this mean that if someone already owns an iPhone 7 and does not want to upgrade to the newest iPhone XS or XR, the most frugal thing to do is keep using it and maybe replace the battery rather than buy a new Android phone?

It would certainly be the most frugal choice.

They already own a device that is just as fast as a new Android device and has at least as many years of support coming to it.

The reasons to upgrade would be increased performance and the battery life improvements you would pick up from moving to an iPhone XR.

>The contrast to the best Android SoCs have to offer is extremely stark – both in terms of performance as well as in power efficiency. Apple’s SoCs have better energy efficiency than all recent Android SoCs while having a nearly 2x performance advantage. I wouldn’t be surprised that if we were to normalise for energy used, Apple would have a 3x performance lead.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13392/the-iphone-xs-xs-max-re...

Perhaps that is worth the puchase price to you and perhaps it is not.

> I think once you touch the £1,000 mark you have to start proving far more worth than polished marketing. My work thankfully proved an iPhone 8, otherwise, I was going to buy an iPhone 6 or 7 [0]

Fraser Spiers (famous in certain circles as an ‘iPad in schools’/productivity tools proselytizer) recently faced the same dilemma and made the switch to Android/Chromebook instead:

http://www.speirs.org/blog/2018/11/18/on-switching-from-ios-...

https://www.relay.fm/canvas/72

You can always tell what people really believe when it’s their own money on the line. I hope those schools take note the next time a snake oil salesman comes calling!

Even if you use your phone for everything, an iPhone 6 or 7 will still be a very good phone. Those who own the 6 or 7 simply have no need to upgrade yet and there isn't a large number of people left that are in the marked for their first smartphone. My employer offered to upgrade my two year old iPhone 7 to either an 8 or XR, but there's simply no reason to, it still a good phone and I still get 3 or 4 days of battery life.

Rather than cramming more stuff into the iPhone, Apple could use the next iteration to reduce cost. There's a large number of Android users that could be convince to switch, if the price is low enough and the quality is preserved. Currently the cheapest iPhone is $610 in Denmark, that's the iPhone 7 and the iPhone XR is $1020. I'm not sure who Apple is targeting with those prices, other than people who can't or won't pay the $1350+ for the iPhone Xs. Apples desire to continually increase prices simply has to scare some customers way.

> Apple could use the next iteration to reduce cost

They're already doing this, while flogging the decreased functionality as "improvements".

Exactly. It is not that I or We cant afford £1250 or $1300 Phones. It is that we cant justify it. I cant accept my iPhone has worst antenna performance and reception compared to Android CounterParts. All using Qualcomm. Dual Sim in this year iPhone as well as Next year will still not have Dual LTE ( DSDV ), i.e Being able to call someone while using LTE on another SIM card, Standard since 2017 Qualcomm modem. Not available to Intel modem until (may be) 2020. Camera no longer the best for two consecutive year. Still no 10W charging when others are into 15W+ already. ( And even worst they actively made all the newer Lightning Cable incapable of supporting Fast Charge ) And the TCO of owning Apple devices is going up as well.

Battery Swap after Two years? $100 Camera Lens not working? $200 Screen Break or Back Glass broke? $700 Losing the Phone and don't have Backup?

Helpless.

There is something money cant buy, for everything else there is AppleCare+ with Theft Protection. ( Ad for Apple )

If they are going to charge so much for repair they might as well extend the coverage to 2 years standard.

We used to be frustrated with Apple, but every year we will see what they have been working on and thought "That is what they have been up to", forgive them for ignoring lots of small things and embrace their New innovation. The past three years I have not been exactly please with their pace. At least not when they have 10-100x the resources of Apple Pre iPhone era.

The price of a new, unlocked iPhone XR in the US right now appears to match the price of a new, unlocked iPhone 8 at this time last year.

It is generally the case that the standard current-year iPhone model takes over roughly the previous model's price point at release, and the now-previous-year model undergoes a price drop.

The introduction of a new tier (the higher-end, occupied last year by the X and this year by the XS) is a change, but has not done away with the iterations of "this year's model" and "last year's model" in the tiers below it.

Perhaps this is a long play to test the elasticity of demand for iphone.

The iPhone Xr is £749, which is little changed from previous iPhone generations.

The price of their flagship is ever increasing though. Pointing out that their 'budget' model is now at the same price as their old flagships isn't really making a good case for the affordability of iPhones.

Increasing the highest possible price is kind of meaningless. You can look at the most expensive iPhone and max out the memory on that to reach an even higher price. For a better comparison US inflation has been ~25% since the iPhone's so:

The cheapest new iPhone is $449.99 which works out to 360$ in 2007 dollars. The cheapest original iPhone was $599 in 2007 dollars or the equivalent to ~750$ today, making them far more affordable.

What really changed is cellphone companies stopped baking in heavy phones subsidies. Now you can still pay next to nothing at purchase, you just see a separate monthly fee on every cellphone bill.

Geez, is that seriously the bottom end?

I paid US$500 for my current iPhone, which is about half that price, and just about the top of what I'd be willing to pay for a device with a useful life as short as that of your average smartphone. Should I seriously expect to be coughing up 100% more to replace my current phone if it craps out?

No thanks. Those sorts of hijinks make Nokia's bananaphone look more and more attractive.

> is that seriously the bottom end?

It's the middle end by average sales price -- about half of people pay less than that, about half pay more. Check out https://twitter.com/asymco/status/1040240778860146688 for the whole picture.

No, the budget option is £449.

No, the bottom end for Apple is the iPhone 7 - Apple is still selling it, for £449.

That's why I switched to Android. iOS is great and had no complaints about the platform. It was lovely. But the price hikes became ridiculous and as a symbolic protest I am now an Android user. I can't accept the prices anymore.

Android isn't an equivalent replacement, but I can adapt.

Still significantly more expensive than a lot of other pretty high-end devices. Though I guess it does hit Samsung in their sweet-spot.

To put the price into perspective, adjusted to inflation, the 3GS was 50$ cheaper, the 4S was 35$ cheaper.

https://i.redd.it/jclu70hbjzw11.png

That's a fantastic list and reflects my sentiment about Apple's price hikes very well. iPhones to me always started at around $700ish. Only with the larger plus sized models people started accepting $800+. Then boom - suddenly the jump to $1000+ with the X (which was deemed a 'special' device based on it's 'advanced' features), so I think many expected prices to come down again. But instead we now have an XS Max with starts at $1100. Compared to the $700 usual starting price we are up 58% and innovation has decreased not increased since.

That's amazing to me, actually. Compare what 3Gs can do vs an Xr, and that's only $50 more in real dollars? Incredible. Shows the rapid rate of progress in mobile technologies.

That is assuming your wages / salary increases with inflation. Which is not true for majority of people, hence it felt expensive. Not to mention consumers got used to Tech being cheaper with Moores Law, which is no longer true.

Also in the UK, and I can't remember the last time I actually bought a phone outright. I resigned myself years ago to paying ~£40/mo for a contract and insurance. Every 2 years I get an upgrade to the latest iPhone.

Vodafone is also offering pretty decent trade-in deals - certainly better than my old phones sitting in a drawer!

I'm in the UK and I buy my phones outright, through my company.

I pay about £15 pcm for unlimited data and more of everything else than I can use. I buy a phone when I feel like it, usually about every 18 months to two years. Currently very happy with my P20 Pro. Advantages (to me) are that I can switch network whenever I feel like it, and I own the phone from day 1.

How do you pay 15£/month for unlimited data? Three had 17£/month (now 30GB for new clients) but I’ve never seen 15£/month for unlimited data.

Errr.... It might be £17. It's a Three business contract that's been running for two or three years now.

I put the unlimited part to the test as well, using it as our home broadband for a few months. 100GB+ and they didn't squeal.

(--edit-- looking at the invoice it's a mess of charges, bonuses and weird discounts, starting at a base price of £34 plus vat, brought down to £17 plus vat, not quite as cheap as I thought and a lot weirder)

How do you get the discount? I opted to keep my personal plan instead of choosing a business plan because it was 34£+VAT, but if with a discount is just 17£+VAT then it’s very interesting.

I wonder if I just called up on a day when the sales guy needed to make up a quota or something.

Looking at what I have on my invoice -

  £34 - Business 900
  £4.167 - Landline 1000 (this on is weird, I have no landline from anyone)
  £4.255 - Broadband Plus (I also don't have broadband from them)
  -£8.511 - '25% Recurring discount'
  -£16.667 - 'Loyalty discount'

Coming out at £17.286 for the lot before VAT, I'm assuming the guy put on some basic charges for the lowest level landline and broadband connections, which were never to be provisioned, to unlock the discounts ... !

I bought an S7 (1 year old) off ebay for ~£300, and I pay £10/month for service (with giffgaff so I can adjust the plan monthly if I need more or less data for a given month).

I don't get an iphone, but it's a fair bit cheaper...

S7 is a solid phone. It launched with a great camera, slim design, great battery life and decent speed.

Sure there is stuff that's better now for games or really pushing it. But for taking some pictures, navigating, podcasts, notetaking, general admin, youtube, messaging etc etc it's still absolutely fine.

I've actually just bought a Moto G6 Play and that's an extraordinary device for the money (£129.99).

4000mAh battery, bigger screen (though not 'better') and can do all the S7 does above without trouble. Camera isn't as good but man it's cheap for what you get.

I have a S7 as well. What phone would you suggest to be better for games? I travel quite a bit for work and while I admit I was quite skeptical of games on the go I now find in them quite a bit of enjoyment.

It would just be my assumption that the latest generation with the fastest processors would be best for games I guess. I'm not sure, I actually acted in another thread what the latest phones with the new fastest processors do with all that power as I'm just a 'typical' user that doesn't really push things. I assume games would take advantage of this extra power.

What would a matching plan cost you without the phone?

I can't speak for Denmark, but at least in Canada it's often hard to tell— the advertised prices all assume you're on contract and paying down a device. So the BYOD price generally is something you have to ask about, or get through the retention department by calling and threatening to cancel.

This is the funniest thing I've read in a while. I remember the rest of the world mocking the American model for cell phone plans (contract lock-in with high monthly rates in exchange for cheap uogrades) and praising the model used in the UK and most of the EU (no contract, incredibly cheap rates but phones are purchases outright). American carriers finally came around to adopting the UK/EU model in the past few years as people began to become more accepting of the idea that the latest smartphone is worth keeping for more than 2 years if it means halving their monthly service payment and now you're telling me the UK has adopted the old American business model?

I find this to be hilarious for reasons I can't quite articulate but going from a model where service is decoupled from hardware to a model where you're contractually obligated to pay a set bundled fee is a 180 degree switch too inexplicable to ignore.

Australia had the USA's model, and to a certain degree, still has. But it used to be that if you wanted a reasonable amount of data (back in the days where 2 up to 8GB was "reasonable"), you'd be best off to get one of the expensive phones on a plan (say $80-100/mo).

But these days, those expensive plans have 20-30GB a month, whereas I'm still only using the data I was back then, and you can get plans for $20/mo for 4-6GB. So I've now gone to buying the phone outright and getting a cheap plan, and save a ton of $.

I suspect a lot of people are still under the mentality that they need the amount of data included in the more expensive plans, without ever checking that to be the case.

Of course, if you're streaming YouTube/Netflix/music at the high bandwidth rates and not even doing the bare minimum to pull down that data while on WiFi, all bets are off.

The UK hasn't "now adopted" that model. It has existed in european countries for basically forever, it just wasn't/isn't the only choice, and less popular.

A new iPhone XR 64GB is £749 ?

Which is still 2x what I would even consider spending on a phone.

I use my iPhone for personal use and business, as a replacement for a camera (completely stopped using a DSLR) and to provide navigational assistance on the ~1 day a week I spend in the mountains.

Pretty much a bargain as far as I am concerned.

When I think about the devices my iPhone has replaced, it is still an incredible value. My P&S camera (not my DSLR yet, but getting better), video camera, music device, book reader, hand held gaming device, navigation system, oh and my phone/communication device.

The less expensive devices can do some of those well, but I don't think all yet. Video seems to be where other devices still fall down.

But, I also agree that not everyone needs a device to do all of those things. I have friends who do not take pictures, or video, or use nav. A $200 phone is the right choice for them.

Sounds like there's a few of us in the same boat, where our priority is the photo+video quality.

Coming from a previous life as a pro-photographer who has since sold all his gear, I almost always default to the "telephoto" lens (which is really a 'normal' lens in old-school photographer speak ;) ) on the 6+, 7 and now X, and am still astonished at the quality that you can get out of a smartphone.

The HDR on the photos+video of the newest models is very tempting... but I can wait out the year and either get one 2nd hand or whatever model replaces it.

I use all those nav assistance features too (offline topo maps yay!).

I just have the basic iPhone 7 - so I am quite keen to get the "telephoto" option.

I can't quite get across the hump of selling my gear. I have cut way back though. The only lenses I use anymore are my 300mm zoom and my 50mm. Obviously, the reach with the first is great, and the 50mm just takes amazing pictures.

I sold mine so I couldn't take any more jobs. Otherwise it would be too tempting.

But agreed, I wish I had more versatility in focal lengths. Sad to see none of the "external sensor body that uses the phone as main UI" devices (Olympus Air, Sony QX) really took off.

I guarantee there's something you spend money on that someone else would make this same comment about.

It's almost £800 in Denmark. I really do prefer iOS for smartphone, but I'd never buy an iPhone with my own money. Of cause I think a fair price for a phone is closer to $50, but that's just a reflection of my usage.

What do you mean by "fair"? I think the BOM cost of most smartphones is going to be more than $50.

Fair as in: The price is justified by the usage. I only need text and phone calls, so the majority of the smartphone features aren't proving me with any real value, it just drives up the purchase price.

I'm a bit surprised by that definition of "fair". If you were buying a phone for yourself, would you get a flip phone, then? Or something with a physical keyboard? Both of these are available for $50 or less, I think.

Realistically I suppose I would pay up to around $150 for a phone with a touch screen, a nice phone book app, iMessage support (or similar), five year guaranteed live span, and and OS other than Android (or a completely de-google OS, with non assistant features at all)... And an OTP app.

I could use a feature phone, and I have, but I would like a better phone book.

For $150, in the US, you could probably get three iPhone 4S plus accessories, or maybe two iPhone 4S (or 5) plus a couple battery swaps. This sounds like it would meet your requirement. Personally I’m all for buying used equipment. The drawback would be that your app store purchases would be somewhat limited, and you’re rolling the dice with used hardware.

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