$1000 phone

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What do you thing ?

Andy

Reply to
Andy
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I just bought a brand new 3 year old model Samsung to replace the one that started acting goofy. $125.00. I'm good.

Reply to
Taxed and Spent

All of iApple's iToys start with the letter 'i'...as does idiot.

Reply to
iApple iDiot

I don't think you can get anything good for only $1000. It's all junk.

Reply to
micky

Smart phones are just computers with a phone ap. I have a Tracfone flip phone costing me $150 for 2 years service. Just want a phone. For computer I have desktop where work is easy and doesn't require little bitty screen and typing.

Reply to
Frank

Brand new iPhone SE $150. Isn't the new Samsung around $950? Are we all supposed to drive Yugos too? Ban BMW, they cost more than Fords? The visceral hate some people have for certain brands is entertaining/sad to watch.

Reply to
Mark Storkamp

I think the $1000 phone is just calling attention to the cost/value for such a small item, powerful as it is. Can they sell it for less? Sure, Apple has tons of cash, but as long as people are willing to give them more, they will take it.

If you think the price of the phone is obscene, just look at the money we throw at athletes and celebrities. The good ones are making millions for doing what they like. Compare their worth to the aid taking care of mom at the nursing home and let me know who has more value in life.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

The downside of course is that your desktop doesn't fit into a pocket and therefor you don't have it with you. I use my smartphone when out and about all the time. From pulling up info on products when in a store, to finding restaurant menus and hours for those near me, to getting directions either driving or walking, finding hotels near me, finding gas at the lowest prices nearby. I have Yelp to check out restaurants, see if they are any good. Plus I can get texts wherever I am.

Then there are the other fun apps, like FlightRadar24, where I can see aircraft in the air, what plane, where they came from and going to, etc.

Has it replaced the desktop? No. But between tablets and smartphones, the sales of desktops peaked 3 years ago and have been declining since. Intel is lucky they are king of servers, that's where all the profits are coming from. They badly missed the phone market, ignored it. They should have bought Qualcomm back in the early days.

As for $1000 phone, I recently bought a ZTE Max XL, 6" high res screen,

4000 mah battery, USB C connector, fast charging, 2GB ram, 16GB Flash, finger print sensor, Android Nougat (scheduled for Oreo upgrade). It cost me $100. About the only possible thing additional I might need would be more Flash and I can add an SD card for not much cost. I'm sure that $1000 iphone has some more bells and whistles, but the value proposition sure isn't there for me.
Reply to
trader_4

What do you thing ?

From the article

"The tech giant is expected to unveil the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X at an event Tuesday, promising wireless charging, a better camera, a bigger screen and a much higher price."

The obvious thing is phones will reach a point where they are too big to be handy. It's too big if I can't put it in my pocket. I don't remember the details. There's a point where we can't really see the difference in photo quality. I think we've reached that point with some of the TVs on the market now.

Reply to
Dean Hoffman

My new phone has a 6" screen. I was concerned it might be too big, but it's OK. I wouldn't want anything bigger though. And a smaller one is more comfortable to hold in your hand when making calls, but I got used to it. As to screen quality on a phone, you're right. I forget the details, but I looked into it before getting this one, there was somewhere around I think 250 DPI where it doesn't make any difference on a smartphone size screen. Apple was at that limit or above it for a long time with it's phones. Other manufacturers pushed higher, at 2X that on their high end phones. IDK what the new Apple is, but I think it's way up there too now. People are buying on specs, not what they can see. Those more expensive displays probably have other advantages, like maybe better brightness, color rendition, etc, too. But it's not worth $500 or $900 more to me for what I use a phone for. The 6" display though is very nice, makes it more usable.

Reply to
trader_4

And many, many of these people who buy expensive phones and high prices tickets, are being supported for their health insurance, etc. as they "need our help".

Reply to
Taxed and Spent

I agree, no doubt that's going on. It happens anytime there is a govt assistance program. For starters, those working cash businesses only show X income, while the real income is Y.

And with health insurance, the first problem is that neither the Democrats with Obamacare or the GOP with their recent effort, did anything to even understand the underlying real problems that are driving high healthcare costs. They pretend that it's just about insurance. Trump, in particular, was supposed to be the smart businessman, the problem solver. A smart businessman would investigate, find out what;s wrong, what's working, what's not, what we need to do to get lower healthcare costs. Instead Trump just punted to Congress and Congress did nothing to address the core issues. We had endless hearings on Hillary's emails, we're having endless hearing now on Russia and the election. But I didn't hear any hearings on healthcare cost, testimony from insurance companies, doctors, hospitals, drug companies, patients, experts, etc. Did you?

Reply to
trader_4

Hillary did all that years ago, in secret, with her hand picked yes men. That is one reason she was not elected.

Reply to
Taxed and Spent

Another reason I like my little flip Tracfone. I can comfortably carry it in my shirt pocket.

Reply to
Frank

Really? When I leave home I usually know where I'm going, how to get there, what I'm going to do when I get there, and how to get home.

You don't know anything about the product beforehand? Maybe you're one of those impulse buyers. It might take me six computer-hours spread over a couple of weeks for any sizeable purchase. Not time I want to spend staring at a itsy-bitsy screen in some store. Further don't the store people have all the information on their product? (They might have to look up their website for you but at least it'll be on a reasonably-sized screen.)

Huh? Maybe if you're on vacation. How many of those do you take each year?

You just suddenly get the urge to spend the night in a hotel? Oh, I see. That hooker doesn't already have a room .

Maybe if you're in FL at the moment.

Oh, yeah. Yelp's really reliable. Again on vacation maybe.

You mean text messages? Not useful text like the User Manual for the Smooler-Cooler refrigerator that's making horrible grinding noises...oops that's at home just near your Super-Duper printer attached to your large sized Desktop monitor.

I can watch grass grow for the same thrill.

I must admit that some of what you point out might be useful on vacation including a GPS function. I really hate my 10 year-old (about) Garmin and much prefer Google maps. Of course this may be an unfair conclusion biased by the size of my Desktop and on functions that I'm not sure even exist. For example, (keeping it in your area) I'd like to go from Princeton NJ to Richmond VA avoiding Washington DC and only on non-expressway roads. Show me the route and then let me change portions of it. Keep a changing total of time and mileage.

Yeah, I too might like Yelp or Trip Advisor on vacation and Google too but most of these things I can do back at the hotel on my laptop.

So I could pay for a phone to do all this but I'd only use it for (say) a week a year. Can I rent the phone and any necessary software for that week? OK, I'll spring for a month but that's it.

For phone functions (talking) my wife and I have identical flip phones which cost all of $200 a year for both (carrier cost) and they do text messaging too..wow. I only found out about the latter when my son, the proud owner of about 4 super-duper smart phones, borrowed one to send a really urgent (!) text and they were all on charge or at home. I had to suppress a giggle. Don't you people have spare fully-charged batteries?

There is supposed to be a study on what people use their cell phones for but I've never been able to find it. Maybe Apple paid to have it suppressed? Any ideas?

Reply to
knuckle-dragger

Ed Pawlowski posted for all of us...

I too find this obscene. I always have. Of course, I am NOT athletically inclined. The smart ones stay in school so they have a backup when their body fails.

Reply to
Tekkie®

Sure, I *usually* do to. But usually doesn't mean that there still aren't enough other times when a smartphone is very useful

You;ve never come across another item you were not aware of, didn't know about?

It might take me six computer-hours spread

Who says it has to be sizeable? If I need a fitting for example, it turns out HD is out of it, I can check and see if Lowes does. Or if I see something for $75 at HD, I can check and see if it's available elsewhere for less to make it worthwhile getting it there. It only takes a couple mins to check.

Not time I want to

Obviously you haven't much experience with the knowledge of the typical staff at stores today.

(They might

Are they going to look up and see if it's less money at Lowes for you? What the lowest price is online?

I do that frequently, not just when on vacation. If I'm on a day trip, errand an hour away, I frequently take a look at what new places there are that I might be interested in. Just did that yesterday, just 15 miles from home. I decided to look on Groupon, see what deals there were on interesting places for lunch. Quickly found a $20 deal for $10 at a Mexican place I'd been to. NExt stop, check it out on Yelp. The reviews were all excellent, it's been open only 5 months. Bought the Groupon deal on the phone, used Google Maps to get there. We had a great $20 lunch for $10.

A recent example, we went down to see the eclipse. Didn't know whether we wanted to stay after the eclipse, how far we wanted to drive, so we just winged it. I was checking hotels on the phone while we were driving back.

I use the GasGuru app here in NJ frequently. Why would I have to be in FL?

I find it useful. If you don't, then don't use it. And it;s not limited to vacations. I gave you an example above. Last weekend we were in NYC, I used it there. Many times we're an hour or so from home and interested in trying new restaurants. I use Yelp to find all kinds of places, Thai, Indian, Pakistani, Without the phone, I would not know they were there unless I planned ahead and knew what kind of food I wanted. I can also check on the fly and see if they are open on that day and time.

I see, so texts are of no use to you either.

Not useful text like the User Manual for the

To each his own.

I'll bet the majority of GPS mapping is being used by people who are not on vacation. Sure, I know my way around the area here and on the major roads. But if I'm in the middle of Jersey City or Newark, having the GPS on the smartphone get me to the turnpike in the middle of the night, well I find that useful.

I really hate my 10 year-old

Sure, if you plan ahead. But if you're out, don't have every min planned, don't know where you're going to wind up, and now it's

9PM and you feel like Indian food, then what? Or you knew you wanted Indian or Thai, now it's 9PM and you want to find directions to one of them from where you are?

I'd say my phone partly pays for itself. Lunch at half price, less money spent on gas, comparing hotel deals in the car... Compared to the costs of other things, like internet access, cable TV, even basic utilities, $45 a month for a smartphone seems like a good value proposition to me. If it's not for you, then don't try using it. And I'd say if you haven't tried it, then you don't even know what it can or can't do for you.

I just gave you some good examples. Being able to reply to emails from anywhere is another one.

Reply to
trader_4

You miss the point. I too can dream up examples where people "might" use a cell phone. The study that I saw referenced an ongoing categorized list containing quantities of people over a period of time who (say):

Talked to b/f g/f about a previous date, Made arrangements for a future date, Moaned about the customers at their workplace, Made appointments with Dr, Dentist, Optician, etc, Gave excuses for failure to get to work on time, Ordered a pizza/big Mac etc Called in an order for a product (salesman type at the customer's business), Rang for a tow truck, ... and on and on and on.

A few of these above are good use for a cell phone: the rest are a failure of inter-personal relations, especially when they're done in text messaging.

As to your description of the restaurant use. Yikes! A discount? Yikes again. Remind me never to eat with you . Who was is who said: "If you have to ask the price you can't afford it"? I think he was talking about a yacht but a similar rule could apply to food. If the restaurant applies a discount it's saying: "We want customers who worry more about the cost than the quality of the food. We'll just shove that past-its-prime fish off to them. They'll be counting their saved dollars and they'll never notice."

Your trial of new cuisines is commendable but go to restaurants that are the top of the line within the category. Or at least above average as best you can determine. Look at food quality not cost. Very often they track though.

Reply to
knuckle-dragger

I didn't dream up anything, I merely pointed out actual examples of how I use my smartphone, how it's useful to me.

The study that I saw referenced an ongoing

And all those can be done with an ordinary cell phone too, yet you have one and it's OK. Go figure.

You're free to do things your way. That doesn't make the way other people do them wrong. And one difference, if you text something to someone or email it via a smartphone, it's not subject to their mixing up numbers, getting the time wrong, when they write it down. You have a record of it too. You may prefer getting a phone call, having people interrupt you, having to take the call to find out that someone just agreed that Friday at 2PM is OK to meet. I'd prefer it in an electronic communication and don't see it as some kind of failure at inter-personal communication.

You're free to do as you please. Feel free to pay full price. And again, you're criticizing that which you don't use, so how would you know? There are local restaurants that are on Groupon, that I had been to before there was a Groupon. The food is very good. They have good ratings online. They regularly offer Groupon deals for half off. You can be at the other table paying full price, I don't care, it's your choice. But you might want to at least look at what's there, before you start jumping to totally unfounded conclusions. I've used Groupon many times. Some food is excellent, some is OK, a few aren't so good. It's a way to try new restaurants, try new things, and even eat at some regular places at half price. I've had great food at 3 star restaurants with world famous chefs and I've had great food from a shack or street vendor in China. Price one way or the other doesn't mean it's good or bad.

I don't need your condescending advice on what makes good food. And I don't just look at cost. But I think it's nuts to pay full price like the table next to me, when I can get it for half price and it's all the same excellent food.

You really take the cake. This was a thread about whether the features of the new $1000 iPhone are worth it. You don't use a smartphone, yet here you are telling us the whole category isn't needed. Obviously hundreds of millions of people, including many in third world countries, disagree with you. Your comments would be like me coming into a discussion about whether a high end Beretta shotgun is really worth the price and bitching about who needs a shotgun anyway, when I don't own one. And then you imply that I'm trying to be cheap by taking advantage of Groupon deals, something you again have no knowledge of, while you freely brag about how cheap you are, paying only $200 a year for basic cellphones. Go figure. I pay a little more, find the value proposition well worth it, and you have a problem with that. Nobody here is criticizing you for doing it your way.

Reply to
trader_4

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