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Comment by kylehotchkiss | Hacker News Reader

I just got a backup iPhone SE for $430. It's fantastic. Same chip as recent iPhones. Very decent camera. Better battery life than my 13 pro. Actually fits in pocket. More fun to play games with one-handed. Easily will last 5 years with a case. Not a luxury device, but pretty competitive with what a lot of young people in even middle-income countries would pay for phones.

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$430 is getting close to luxury phone. And the features on remotely affordable iPhones are often below or maybe on par with what you used to be able to get from LG for $220 before they sadly stopped.

The chip only matters for gaming really, cheap Android phones have been fast enough for years, and if the price difference is similar to a Switch or something then I'd rather have a dedicated gaming machine if I was really into gaming.

I suppose it also matters for niche stuff like music production, but Android does very well at being a generic multipurpose device for non-enthusiast tasks, and at being cheap enough that you can afford a dedicated device.

The short support period is an issue though.

Is it anywhere near a luxury if 88% of teens can afford it? The iphone starts at $430 and tops out much higher than that, so the ASP is considerably higher.

I don't think it's the teens buying it for themselves.

Feel free to interpret it as 87% of teenagers’ parents can afford to buy (often multiple) iphones for their children. The actual market share of apple in the US is also at around 50%, so I wouldn’t call it luxurious.

Though let’s add that a smartphone is probably the single most used item a person will own (used more often than your shoe), so it does make sense that people will give out quite a sum for these.

$430 is a lot of money though... and probably a lot for a "kids" phone too? You can get previous generation androids that aren't total POS for ~$150, like a Moto G 8-9.

My first smartphone, as a highschooler, was $40 (circle 2014). My first "luxury" phone was a $150 Android.

A $430 price tag IS a lot.

And to top it off the $430 was for a backup phone.

In the US?? It was VERY rare to find a phone that cheap in 2014. I had a Nexus 5 in 2014 and it went for $350 ($437 in 2022 dollars). And that was considered a really good deal/budget phone.

Pixel 6a was on sale a couple weeks ago for $350.

I haven't ever paid more than $500 for a phone, and even that much upset me!

Nexus was a mid/high-end model (google branded), budget android phones are usually from chinese manufacturers like ZTE.

In the US!

I got an 'LG Optimus' phone in 2015 for $125 (after tip and tax, down from the $150 I had in my memory.) I don't have the 2013 receipt for the $40 phone though, that might have been through a WalMart contract.

A new 'Moto G Power' can be had for $150 right now (down from $250) and a new Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro can be had for $220. You can find sub-$50 phones too, especially in the used market.

>tip

What? I want to know more about the circumstances that led to you paying a tip while buying a cellphone. What country was this? What state/province? What store?

(I see that your comment mentions the US and Wal-Mart, but I think both of those are about the $40 purchase and I'm curious about the $125 purchase.)

Haha woops, force of habit! I just meant "tax", not "tip and tax".

I did not realize I was in the habit of saying "tip and tax" to refer to extra fees.

Moto G line has models that are $169 new. You can get older used models for $60 and a line of service for $20 a month. I think people vastly overestimate how much money average people actually spend.

There's a fair number of posts in the thread now pointing out that iPhones are not-that-expensive, and all of them drive up my own engagement with the plight of the people who can't afford one. If you're, say, in a 5% bracket of society who can't afford one, it's all the more awful and potentially debilitating to have a marker on you that flags you as part of the 5%, no?

And at $430 it's still a lot more than 5% in the USA.

If you think a green bubble is the only thing that will mark you for that 5%, that people will judge, you've never been, or known anyone, that was poor.

I neither think so nor said I do - it just happens to be the one we're discussing here, distinctly from the many others.

With the SE (and regular 13 & 14) having not-that-great 60 Hrz displays, I could never switch from my 13 Pro to anything else but a 14 Pro (that's why my second phone is a Pixel 6 Pro [or sometimes a OnePlus 10 Pro], as 120 Hrz & 1440p are requirements for a phone to be in my pocket).

I used to have a SE (2nd Gen), prior to ever experiencing a better display, and now I can never go back,

However, if the came out with an SE that did have 120&1440p, I would definitely buy.

$430 is a lot to some people.

Average yearly income in India 1875$ iPhoneSE for kids - 430$ I think it’s unobtainable for most of the people

https://www.statista.com/statistics/802122/india-net-nationa...

They mostly use Android in India. This is about the US.

iPhone SE in India isn't $430, it's $607 at today's exchange rate: https://www.apple.com/in/shop/buy-iphone/iphone-se/4.7-inch-... (still, EMI somewhat easily available)

20k-30k for Android phones seems to be the norm there according to the advertisements everywhere.

What about monthly data plans and their recurring costs?

That's another uniquely American atrocity.

You can buy SE 2020's for significantly less, it's just that Apple themselves don't sell those in retail (but are still producing those and selling in gross).

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