An upgraded iPhone 8 with a starting storage of 64 Gb at only $399. Seems like a great deal. Makes me seriously consider this model for my next phone instead of spending $1200 on an iPhone 11 Max.
I can afford the newer ones, but I don't see the value relative to the four-figure cost.
I loved - LOVED - that phone.
It sits above my personal line of "good enough", though, and every photo will be mangled by $social_network JPEG compression before anybody else sees it anyway.
iOS's new text interface may still push me to Android. The affordances for text on iOS have historically been simple, dependable, and understandable. Now, I find myself struggling to select, copy, and edit text fields. Gesture-based cursor management doesn't work well on small screens.
Best iphone i have ever needed.
I looked into it a bit, and found that this happens when a piece of dust gets into the lens, which steals the focusing of the camera, so it shakes because it oscillates focus from the field of view and the piece of dust. Sadly the camera module needs to be replaced, which can be purchased cheaply but medium tedious difficulty to replace - or pay to have it done not as cheaply.
The other thing that went wrong, also apparently in an OS update, is that TouchID won't work anymore. The hardware isn't recognized.
Current iPhones still struggle in low light photography but I can't see myself caring enough to upgrade to a new flagship anytime soon just to maybe take better pics at night.
my friends ended up being right, those issues could never be worked out because it’s a fundamental problem. Integrated circuits are more efficient than others and having high performance data and power contacts is wasteful at best, and heavy at worst.
It’s the same as building a computer on a breadboard vs having everything built in like a raspberry pi.
I think this competes better with people considering Android. You could do a lot with $400USD in that market.
That will spur a great deal of people who are refusing to buy iPhones to buy iPhones (+$$$) and convert a certain percentage of bigphone users to smallphone users at a lower pricepoint at the next upgrade cycle (-$$).
It is possible that Apple's usage statistics for old iPhones indicate that the + will be greater than the - while getting a bunch of users off of older lower-performing phones.
(I don’t buy Android because I’ve been bitten by the non-encrypted memory before, and Google isn’t serious about privacy).
May or may not work though. I have a friend that does this, and one of his kids simply cannot save money. So when there's something he knows that they all want, he buys it for all of them rather than make them save for it.
Where does it end though? A phone in one thing; what about a video game console, or pricey sneakers or brand name clothing from the top streetwear brands?
Rvery day I'm feeling a little more grateful that we had school uniforms where I went. The materialist one-upsmanship was insane even then, but at least for 8 hours/day people weren't walking billboards for "look at how much my parents have spent on me".
They don’t use those things to talk to their friends. Think of how many things are digital-first or digital-only these days. Their phone is how they literally exist among their peers in society. It is non-optional.
iPhones have been shipping with processors a few years ahead of android performance for a while now, and that gives them serious staying power.
TCO is very likely lower for even premium iPhone, and this new model is a steal for the specs.
Not true - I've been using using a $100 Motorola G6 for the past 8 months with no issue. I bought it as a "temporary" replacement when I cracked the screen on my $399 X4 which I had used for 2 years with no issue (silly me, with a price that low I decided to self-insure). I ended up using the G6 as my primary phone because it's pretty good phone and does everything a modern flagship can but with expandable storage via microSD - the only downside is that the camera doesn't take amazing pictures
I’m going to pick up a G6 and see how it goes.
If high end Android phones are usually two years behind iOS in performance, can you imagine how bad a low end or midrange Android phone is?
“You can buy cheap Android but if you go much below $399 you’ll be replacing it a lot more often.”
The Moto G is a cheap phone below $399. It was horribly slow. I was referring to that sentence.
As far as high end phones Benchmarks comparing GPU and web performance for high end Android phones compared to iPhones are readily available.
The iPhone 8 is now two and a half years old and is still faster than any Android phone.
Also, compare the performance of the $329 iPad 6th generation to most Android devices.
My S7 is on Android 8.1. I have a newer Nokia on Android 10. I don't see any meaningful differences. The Nokia has something called "Digital Wellbeing" which I don't use. Everything else, like Fingerprint unlock and stuff like that has been around a few years now.
The hardware makes most of the difference IMO. The Galaxy S7 camera handily beats the cheap lens of the Nokia.
My last iPhone was the old SE and I had to replace it after it got so bent/broken after 2 years that it could no longer be reasonably repaired.
These phones (android or iOS) tend to last ~2-3 years at our household (2 adults & 2 kids, kids don't have their own phones).
I now have a Google pixel 3a I bought at a sale for €300 & it doesn't feel any less quality-wise than my old iPhone did. And unlike the old SE I don't have to suffer the too small screen (I got the SE cuz it was the cheapest iPhone at the time but 4" was really too small for comfort).
Most people don't think about that, they just think green bubble bad, blue bubble good, but this is one of those rare instances where it's actual technical issues causing the hangup.
In Europe everyone texts on WhatsApp so nobody is left out.
Also it was mostly spam free due to being tied to a phone number.
The price of the phone is split into 24 payments across the standard 2 year contracts from carriers. Failing that, Apple also offers a 1 year interest free loan. So the price of the phone is already taken out of the equation.
I bought two Sony a7ii cameras and a flash for only $1400, because they were used. Full price new, it would've been 3600. They work great, and I can use my money on other things. I see very few reasons to buy new electronics, especially given the security of an iPhone and how easily they are reset.
I find them hard to believe, but I’ve seen various sources saying 80%+ of teens in the US have iPhones.
https://www.sammobile.com/news/samsung-irrelevant-among-u-s-...
I'd love the fancy camera, but the cost of the flagship seems to be way out of line with the value. I'd rather have a phone + macbook. (I keep computers for 4-5 years and phones for 2-2.5 depending on the battery), so the annualized cost of a fancy iphone is basically the same as a $500 phone + macbook.
I just continually finance the latest phone at 0% interest for ~$40/mo. Trade in every year.
The SE is budget. $40/mo is not budget by any yardstick.