yet they’re still priced and treated culturally like luxury toys

  • Peter G@discuss.online
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    1 year ago

    You’re must be joking! Look around, if you look past the bitten apple, there are plenty of perfectly capable devices out there for under $300. In fact, I see plenty of people who are on the street corners panhandling AND using a smartphone.

    • yenahmik@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      A quick Google showed me a $40 smartphone from Walmart. Granted it’s probably pretty terrible, but it does go to show that they aren’t all priced like luxury toys. If you want a luxury branded phone, you’ll pay luxury prices.

      • zeppo@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I went through a time where I weaned myself from phones by using an ancient flip phone, plus an old Galaxy only on WiFi. Then I moved and needed text messaging etc and bought a $40 Kyocera at Radio Shack thinking it would be good enough. It… sort of was. Mainly I regret that it had a really shitty camera, plus god knows what insane Android spyware.

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You can get a refurbished SE with an A15 cpu for around $200. That’s more processing power than any reasonable person needs on the toilet.

      • Peter G@discuss.online
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        1 year ago

        Of course you can get a used of refurbished ones for less even Apple. I was referring to new devices. As an example, I use a Motorola Edge plus that I bought new for $400. It does everything my wife’s iPhone 15 Pro. The camera quality is slightly lower, but perfectly adequate.

    • zeppo@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I bought a new iPhone 6 for $200 when the 7-8 were new. Totally happy with it and I used it for 3 years. Apple used to be priced at a premium but that hasn’t been true for several years… high-end Android phones cost as much as new iOS devices, and you can get old ones or a SE pretty cheap.