high end phones are 1k, you can buy a used thinkpad for 200$ or a chromebook for 500$ or now the macbook neo for 600$. Well it's also that the phone you need it so the laptop/pc it's an aditional cost
If we're talking about people having a hard time affording a phone - why tf are you bringing up high-end phones at all? I'm in no way poor and my $300 phone was already a pretty painful expense. In those cases, we'd be talking about a <$200 Chinaphone.
Also yeah, indeed, there are affordable laptop options given how much of a necessity it feels like. That tends to be more value per dollar in a laptop too. Personally not comfortable buying secondhand though because I can't risk money on that scale, and there are much less guarantees on the state of the hardware, although would like to eventually learn how to do it as safely as buying new.