[guenthert]

But isn't it just a matter of time til the novelty of smart phones wear of, they stop being tres chic and the cheap ones becoming 'good enough'? It might have taken decades, but eventually Ford bought Cadillac, Fiat bought Ferrari, VW bought Porsche (and Bugatti and a few more).

[RNCTX]

Big difference is Ford, VW, et al had local dealer networks that not only fixed the cars, but turned the lessons and data learned in the fixing back into engineering improvements upstream. The net result of this is over a span of years Ford and VW buyers would see the product get better each time they bought a new one.

Android will always be a low budget product as a market, because it's run by Google. Google doesn't care about its customers at all, but for the data they generate and its impact on ad sales.

Every time a user opens the Google app store, they can expect it to be worse than the time they opened it previously. Every time an Android user buys a new device, it's a crap shoot what sort of hardware issues it will have, even if it's Google or Samsung branded.