Well, a more expensive phone has way more (hardware) features, and thus way more points of failure. Makes perfect sense to me, though I do understand your position.

Snow Leopard has been praised as the best OS X release for focusing almost solely on bug fixing. I wish releases such as this were more common both in soft- and in hardware.

I think that's partly because by the time those components get to the cheap product they've been out in the wild for several years and improved substantially over time. The same thing happens with cars. Today, buying the top of the line BMW or Mercedes almost guarantees you more electrical/functional issues than a mid or entry level model where the technology is flowing down but been in the market for 3 - 7 + years and significantly improved.

One of the biggest smartphone features is "thinness". Thinner phones are considered better.

Thinner phones are also significantly weaker, can flex more, can get cracked circuit boards, cracked solder joints, etc.

The biggest feature of many phones decreases reliability.

Maybe cheap phones last longer because you use them less. In my experience is is usually the moving parts that break (switches and sockets). I want a device designed to work without any physical switches.

OK, sorry. My broader point, though, is that cell phones are in most cases priced in a dishonest way by hiding the cost of the phone in different places and saying the phone is only however much money.

If you purchase it from the Apple store they provide the 6 years (the genius told me this).

I've been with almost all UK phone companies (I used to buy a new iPhone each year for dev reasons but run simultaneous 2 year contracts meaning I had to be with two phone companies at a time) and they are all terrible.

6 years seems great an all as the consumer, but I'd imagine the retailers/manufacturers are not just taking this extra burden all on themselves, but likely passing it down the chain to the consumer via higher purchase price, higher contract price, decreased service quality, fewer staffers, or... etc...

Needless to say, I sure wouldn't even want a smart phone from 6 years ago. People get upset at the USA's more-or-less forced upgrades every 2ish years, but that cadence does seem to fit the timing of when I start to feel my phone is not up to par... 2 or 3 newer generations of devices have come out since my purchase, my battery is starting to lose life (usually never covered by any warranty as this is a standard "wear-n-tear" item like car tires). I'd think a 2 or 3 year warranty should suffice in most cases.

Strong consumer protection is one of the core goals of the EU. http://ec.europa.eu/justice/consumer-marketing/index_en.htm: "The Charter of Fundamental Rights and the European treaties since the Single European Act guarantee a high level of consumer protection in the EU. It is also a general objective defined in Article 12 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU."

It isn't 6 years throughout the EU and for every product, though. The EU directive (= the text the EU writes that tells member countries what to achieve through their laws) states (paraphrasing a lot) that consumers may expect a device they buy to be what is advertised and to last as long as a typical device of what is advertised lasts (Business-to-business is different; there, it is more 'buyer beware')

As is typical for EU directives, that isn't very specific (partly for the better, as being specific would mean that such directives need to be revised all the time) and only describes a goal, not how to reach it.

Individual countries will vary in how they translate that into law. Apparently, Norway went for a very strong consumer protection.