[djannzjkzxn]

Lots of people are spending many hours a week on their phones. And that time is noticeably more enjoyable with a better-functioning phone. I think it’s rational to compare the cost of phone to the cost of something like a car, appliance, or couch and consider how much value you get out of it for how many years when deciding whether the price tag is worth it. Personally, I’d pay at least a dollar an hour to always use a nicer phone, and that pays for a higher end phone every few years.

Consider the case of someone who is upgrading from the iPhone SE they bought four years ago. $100/year seems like a pretty good deal for their next phone.

[atomi]

I still use my Nexus 7 with LineageOS - daily. It's cost? A hundred sixteen dollars - in 2013. I use it for web browsing, reading and video mostly at 1920x1200 for 7 inches with a battery that still lasts a couple of days of heavy usage - I find it extremely difficult to justify spending over a thousand dollars for something that offers a whole lot of stuff that I don't need. One caveat, if you're largely using your phone for pictures then I can imagine it would be worth the cost for newer tech. I just don't need it.

Maybe Apple's better pricing will give Google the kick in the ass they need to bring back an inexpensive phablet like the Nexus 7.

[dzhiurgis]

> I’d pay at least a dollar an hour to always use a nicer phone

That's 75% of a minimum wage in Montana.

[lonelappde]

Units error and fact error.

Min wage in Montana is $8.50/hr .

And it's probably not healthy to be on your phone 8hrs a day.

But if you are, then a $1000 phone is only 25cents/hr over 2 years, when you can resell your phone for half price.

[dzhiurgis]

Saw some map showing Montana min wage is $4. Even if you use your phone 8hrs a day (a ton of people do for work), you own it for 24. So that's $24 a day.

It all a bit pointless math for HN crowd, but it does give some perspective - there are places where pay is very low and you don't even need to look far. People do actual work on their phones there.

[djannzjkzxn]

The US has a federal minimum wage of $7.25. Maybe some state has a lower minimum wage law, but if so it isn’t in force.

If I were making minimum wage I’d probably be more in the “buy an iPhone SE every 4 years” rather than “buy a top iPhone every 2 years” category.

But if I are going to critique other people’s spending patterns, I’d start with anyone who bought a new car, not a phone.

[dzhiurgis]

Someone has to buy them, but I always are shocked how people can afford them, especially at something like 10% interest rate.

[weare138]

But why are phones that expensive to begin with? The actual hardware costs are magnitudes less than the retail price. For the price of a the cheapest iPhone X you can get a high end laptop. It doesn't make sense to me why other mass consumer electronics like PC's continuously get faster, better and cheaper but smartphones continuously get more expensive for only modest and incremental improvements.

[djannzjkzxn]

My understanding is Apple has a pretty good margin while most other manufacturers are hardly profitable. It’s a competitive industry. Nobody is charging twice as much as they need to because nobody has that kind of market power.