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Comment by chaostheory | Hacker News Reader

> I'm not really sure what people are paying for when they get those $800+ beasts for phones.

The main reason for us is the camera. We do not own a separate standalone camera anymore. You're not going to be able to take a time machine to take better pictures of the past, which is also why we keep replacing our phones every year. Also I prefer Apple's walled garden especially for the less tech savvy members of my extended family. Tech support is much easier when you can point them to the Apple Store for one to one help and even free classes. Few people ever take into account Apple's physical stores when accounting for the price.

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>The main reason for us is the camera. We do not own a separate standalone camera anymore.

The next question then, is: how good of a camera does the average person need?

I'd fathom the vast majority of people viewing pictures are rapidly flipping through them on some app like Instagram. How much difference does the latest camera make for the average user, really?

For low light situations, the latest phones can make a big difference over a budget phone like Moto G6. Faster photo taking, better stabilization, do make a difference when taking anything moving.

FWIW I used Moto's for a couple of years and really like them. I used to get my wife's iphone for picture taking but now my pixel 2 is all I need.

It's actually getting to the point where they are competitive with DLSRs in some situations. The processing really is doing some pretty amazing things.

It's unnecessarily tricky to talk about what an average person "needs." It's pretty tough to justify any cell phone features as a "need" except perhaps for emergency phone calls (and yet, 20 years ago it seems most people didn't "need" that either).

High-end phone cameras are just really really nice, and they do tend to receive regular improvements that are noticeable to people who are interested in photography or just pay close attention. In 2006 I paid $325 for a Canon PowerShot SD870 IS that was pretty nice at the time, and almost any photo I took on that camera would look noticeably bad today compared to flagship smartphone cameras.

>need?

"Need" doesn't factor into it. People want the latest and greatest.

At this point, if I don't have a phone with a good camera, I'll have to go buy a new standalone camera- probably a point&shoot- in order to satiate my need for documentation and taking photos of my kids.

Also, nobody here seems to mention convenience- carrying around a smartphone is a great replacement for the calculator, watch (possibly with an integrated stopwatch, if you don't get anything too fancy,) walkie-talkie, stress toy, fidget spinner (there's an app for that), elephant, newspaper, or tabloid that might otherwise be on their person.

Utility!

Yes, but apart from the camera even a $20 phone can do almost all of those functions.

People want the cheapest and easiest.

Not all of them, apparently.

> The next question then, is: how good of a camera does the average person need?

I have a family and now time seems to be running much faster than before, and you can't buy back this time which is even more precious now. I want the very best device to preserve this time in amber, while being able to fit in my pocket and simple enough to quickly point and shoot in less than ideal situations and lighting.

Nobody needs a smartphone at all, a feature phone can handle calls and texts just fine. People want the latest and greatest camera, processor, etc and are willing to pay for it.

I think there’s a lot of value in quality for personal archival. I keep full resolution originals of all the photos I take, and even doing that there are some I took with my iPhone 3GS a decade ago that I wish were higher quality now when I look through them. Things like ever improving displays magnify the problem further, revealing flaws and artifacts that wouldn’t have been noticeable back when the photos were taken.

It’s one of those things where better quality is never a bad thing. Eventually, it’ll get to the point where no further meaningful improvements can be derived from smartphone photography but we’re nowhere near that point today, even with the best smartphone cameras on the market.

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