Phones are getting faster and more expensive! Well, any smartphone brand you pick up in recent times, you will easily get that 120Hz fast screen refresh rate, crazy fast processors, GPUs, and Machine Learning chips, four times more ram than what we used to get some years back, and yes, the folding screens as well! But, why the exponential growth in the tech industry has made phones expensive rather than giving us cheaper alternatives for the same price?
For the global markets, flagship phones used to costs two to three times cheaper than what current flagships are costing today. Well, buying a smartphone on credit cards or with easy EMIs has made smartphone ownership easy. But, it cannot hide the facts and figures. If you just go on Google and refer to old press releases, you will be able to find out that the iPhone 5s used to cost almost half the price you pay for recent iPhones. Why is that hike coming? Let’s talk!
“Money”- too hard to earn and much easier to spend all at once. Since the invention of smartphones; the fight for a better quality of materials, feel, speed, connectivity, camera quality, and productivity is going on and on! So should you invest your hard-earned money in branded smartphones or should you buy a cheaper and same spec smartphone that will at least satisfies your basic requirements? Normally in the market, when a new product is introduced, the price will remain high; eventually, the price goes down as competition is growing and that technology becomes easily available. Then what is wrong with our phones, which are maybe being used by you right now to read this article?
Why branded phones are so expensive?
Technically, buying a branded phone is not just to show off a symbol of status that you can own an expensive thing. But, it has so many things going on it. Let’s see why our so-called ‘branded’ smartphones are so expensive!
Research and development:
We might think that companies just upgrade the specs and throw new models every year, right? No! Companies spend a lot of money to develop new things, which will fight against their competition. Minimizing the phone’s thickness, and giving better and more powerful hardware with longer battery life is a tough job!
Hardware innovation:
From previous complaints of customers about build quality and minor problems in hardware, they have to develop new composite materials and test them under various circumstances which may occur in day-to-day life with their consumers. Speakers should be in front or rear, how many megapixel cameras, which resolution for the screen, etc. should be handled by them plus aesthetics should be there.
Software:
Giving super-fast hardware won’t work here, small animations like when you scroll through the menu, and app opening and closing functions should run butter smooth! A unique touch by the company has to be there to make you remember that you are using an expensive user-friendly device. Sometimes a whole new platform has to be created for that!
Optimization:
The most important aspect behind the performance is the better optimization of hardware and software together to give the user a spectacular experience. A cheap $350 smartphone can offer you 4 to 6 GB of RAM, but unoptimized! So when you buy premium phones, they might come with lesser RAM or hardware! But, they’ll perform better than those cheaper phones as their software and hardware are optimized and tested many times to give a glitch-free experience. Gaming, rendering, and other stuff will run faster than a 6 Gb Chinese phone.
OS Updates:
Not only hardware and materials, but brands also throw software and security updates, too; to make customers happy. So to run those updates even after 2-3 years, your mobile was made with that expensive hardware to withstand those advancements. Plus, to solve bugs continuously, a team is working on those problems.
Camera:
Putting better sensors than others and giving wider apertures for better low-light photography is a challenge. Selfie lovers want a wide-angle lens on the front with high-quality image output, flashes are made to make photos look natural, which requires some time and research.
Audio:
Giving the best speakers is not the task, placing them in the perfect place is. Higher quality and loud output speakers eat a lot of battery; to avoid it proper settings are needed.
Screens:
Branded flagships offer better screens with high pixel densities and better screen resolutions. Some of them even come with 4K resolution which is crazy!
Advertisements:
You can see their ads all over the place, to show off and get more customers, companies have to develop and spread new ads to every corner of the World. Ultimately you are paying for all their ads!
After-sales:
Buy any cheap Chinese phone and if you are unlucky enough, you will have to contact their service centers and after-sales managers. At that time, you’ll understand the real value of your phone.
Investments:
When a company is coming up with a whole new product in the market, it is having risk in every aspect, so making phones expensive to come over that risk is the only way.
High taxes and duties:
Since the last couple of years, every country around the world is increasing taxes and duties on smartphones. Electronics goods’ consumption is going high. Thus, you would see a subtle increase even in the mid-range market as well.
Inflation:
We all are familiar with the term Inflation! While our smartphones use all the different types of material that are also aligned with the cost of labor, processing, and transportation – inflation also affects the cost of the phones.
Brand Name:
You’ll show off your phone’s brand logo to everyone around you for sure. And that is not the only thing that makes your device now understood.
So, I would recommend you buy a branded smartphone. Not the top flagship models only, but even mid-range, brands are a good option to look at. Never focus on specs only, as they might lead you to the darker side. Brands offer you good quality plus tested hardware and that’s why they are expensive. Nowadays all Tom Dick and Harry are coming with flashy specs; check is it useful to you or not.
Enjoy your tech!
