[SECProto]

> My apple phones have consistently been good for 3-4 years, making the yearly outlay similar.

That depends a lot. The sum total of every smartphone I've owned since 2012 (4 phones, ~$1100 Canadian before tax) is comparable to the cost of a single current generation iPhone.

[bscphil]

That's a good way of looking at it. In my case, the total is $600 (US) across three phones since 2011, thanks to Google's discounting of off-contract phones on the Play store for Google Fi customers. I've been consistently happy with these phones, and they're flexible in areas that I think would frustrate me if I tried to use an Apple device.