(Opinion) €1500 for the same cell phone every year!?

The smartphone has long ceased to be a cheap “thing”, especially if you have more refined tastes or higher levels of demand. After all, if you want a really top smartphone, you’ll have to put €1500 on the table in the store closest to your home, or, if you want something more “exotic” like a foldable device, you might even have to exceed the amount of €2000.

Which is “more or less” normal if we look at it with our eyes. After all, the smartphone is nowadays the most important electronic device in our lives, and through this little “thing” we talk to our friends, family or co-workers, watch movies, series, or silly videos on social media, play , we do business, or we spend our money on things that are almost always useless

The truth is that we can do everything through this small device, which nowadays is more of a computer than a cell phone itself. However, although we always take this into consideration, as in any market, It can’t be worth everything!

(Opinion) €1500 for the same cell phone every year!?

Therefore, as we said in the articles mentioned above, both Apple and Samsung are sharing a type of strategy that is interesting, successful, but extremely boring for consumers. It is a strategy that is already starting to cause some irritation and is starting to raise serious doubts.

After all, in practice, we have the same exact launch, year after year, at the same exact price, or with increases that seem insignificant over 12 months, but which begin to scare any type of consumer when looking at the medium-long term. term (5~10 years).

Yes, it is true that this strategy can be successful! Just look at what Apple is managing to do with its iPhone, or Samsung is also now trying to do with its range of Galaxy S devices, especially the Ultra models.

Furthermore, it’s also easy to see that a smartphone these days, despite still being a fairly recent concept (it started in 2007!), is already at an evolutionary point where there’s not much left to do. It may seem strange, but the modern smartphone is very close to perfection!

This is exactly why the design is almost always a minor evolution compared to last year’s device, with specifications that are always extremely similar with the exception of the SoC which almost always presents a good annual evolution, all this in a package that little or nothing will change in the future. side of actual day-to-day use.

Which raises the question… What are we paying for?

In case you don’t know, when we go to buy a smartphone, the price indicated there doesn’t just come from the production cost of the device, that is, the purchase or production price of each component that ends up giving life to your smartphone.

In addition to the “bill of materials”, we are also paying for development time, marketing done by the company, as well as shipping and distribution costs for each market.

However, when you look at the iPhone 15 Pro, or the latest Galaxy S24 Ultra, you can’t help but wonder… Where is the cost of developing these devices?

The exterior design has been the same for 2 or 3 generations! In fact, even the internal design of the device ends up being 95% similar, because the components are almost always the same.

So, how come both Apple and Samsung’s top of the range cost €1500 in their base version? In fact, while Apple balanced prices with the iPhone 15, the S24 Ultra ended up being around €50 more expensive!

Consumers need to question whether it is really worth giving more and more money, year after year, when there is so little effort. Yes, we can understand why it is no longer so easy to innovate, but if there is no effort, what are we paying for?

First of all, what do you think about all this? Share your opinion with us in the comments box below.