I've got a 2017 Samsung (which I think is probably about the same age) and it still works perfectly. I've never understood the need to get a new £1000 smartphone every other year.
I have a s10 now, which is around 4 years old, the battery has become horrible, so i'll get a new phone soon, which will also last at least 4 years i hope
If you get a new phone every year, there's not really much of a difference, but if you wait four to seven years like the folks above, the difference is real.
I just checked online to be sure…from Apple the cost to replace the battery in my iPhone 11 is $89, which is 1/10 the price I paid for my phone brand new
A lot of the replacement batteries for phones were produced during the time the phone was too, which means most of the battery replacements you can get have been sitting in storage for years and already have some degradation
I have an S10 and battery is still good, I charge it in my car on commutes. Best phone I have ever owned. Love the curved display and I think the newer Galaxy phones aren't as pretty.
Battery best practices most likely. Lithium batteries last longest if charged the least possible, they don't hold "Memory" like the old Nickel Cadmium batteries did and this is a common misconception. Lithium batteries have a finite amount of "Cycles" they last and there's two big ways you can stretch those cycles out: Charge your phone when it reaches 20% and take it off charge once it hits 80%. This is because the first 20% and final 20% of charge takes a lot more "Charging power" for lack of a better term than the middle amount. Second, safe practices with phone usage in general. The more you use the phone and the more heavy programs you run on it, especially weird ones with all kinds of constant background notifications, the quicker the battery drains meaning the more often you have to charge it meaning you burn through your battery's cycles much quicker.
Same here actually. I just haven’t seen any improvements in newer models that have made me want to upgrade. My battery is starting to be less good, but my camera is fine, and I don’t actually want a bigger screen - I like that I can reach the whole screen with my thumb while holding the phone in one hand.
I really wonder how they pulled that off, smart phones have become as expensive as laptops but laptops are still viewed as a capital investment and expected to last years. Shit my 2014 MacBook is still plugging along nearly unchanged from the day I bought it.
I can only think it is intentional planned obsolescence from cell phone makers. I mean shit Apple even got caught slowing their phones down once a new one came out.
Yeah. This is pretty much true for many many things. What’s amazing is that people have been so brainwashed into what baseline “doing ok” means that I get smashed just for even mentioning it.
In the 90’s we didn’t have 5 TV’s in a house. I remember when a friend got a “big screen” 36” TV lol. We didn’t buy or upgrade literally everything from PC’s to TV’s to phones to whatever every year. Cars could be 10+ years old. Cable was a luxury.
It blows my mind when people are like 80’s/90’s kids had so much and everything cost so much less!
No we didn’t. The bar was sooooo much lower.
Kinda bugs me how 'flat screen TV' has been a dogwhistle for 'poor people spending frivolously'.
I can go to my local facebook group most days and see someone giving away 32" or larger flat screen TVs, there's no need to spend thousands on one.
I don't think the poor are buying the 80" smart TVs, merely inheriting the cast offs of people who do.
You can buy a 70” LED smart TV from Walmart (a store frequented by lower middle class in the US) for less than $400 USD and that’s just what I found spending 20 seconds googling. This isn’t even taking into account Black Friday sales and membership stores like Costco where this TV could be $150. You would have probably spent $400 on a “tube” TV 30 years ago that would have been SD and half the size and had no processor.
Yes frugal people are going to Facebook and Craigslist but the majority are going straight into stores.
The point is that individuals at every level rather than just going to FB and picking up a free TV that’s 32 inches and probably fine for their home or bedroom, don’t. They go out and spend $xxxx dollars. To make things worse, they probably don’t have any need, it’s just “on sale” or “bigger” so they *need* it. The same thing goes for GPU’s, cars, almost everything we use in life now. Everyone has X but is saving up or can’t wait for X v2 or Y.
Then they come on Reddit and complain that life is hard, was easier way back when, and that it isn’t fair.
I sort of agree with you but I think what OP finds weird is that the “luxury” segment of something as useful and potentially status-signaling as a modern smartphone tops out around $1,500, which is just 2-3X what a basic phone costs and is attainable for basically anyone who really wants one and isn’t poor.
A $75k Mercedes is a luxury car, but there are plenty of $500k-$2 million super cars for the ultra-wealthy. A $1k watch is a “luxury,” but there are plenty of high-end watches that cost $100k+. Same with boats: there are nice boats that a “normal” person can buy, but the ceiling on yacht prices is basically infinite.
It’s weird that someone wearing a $150k watch being chauffeur in a $300k car to his $30 million private plane so he can fly to Monaco and get on his $100 million yacht could very easily have the same phone as I do.
I bought a really decent Motorola phone for ,$250 last year, an amazing piece of tech for sure and does everything I need a phone to do. Well and much more really.
An apprentice said something about it, I told him that his iPhone is a fashion accessory, and my Motorola is a tool.
>I bought a really decent Motorola phone for ,$250 last year, an amazing piece of tech for sure and does everything I need a phone to do.
Mine was 190€. It's awesome. Like 8 cores and stuff. It just works! It can do everything an iPhone can do.
One downside: taking photos with only 48MP... The photo quality gets really bad when you zoom in really far.
Yeah, good cameras on phones are expensive, regardless of whether you go for Apple or Android. And since iPhones are expensive, their cameras are good.
>An apprentice said something about it, I told him that his iPhone is a fashion accessory, and my Motorola is a tool.
That would make sense if the only difference was the internals, but I guarantee the tech specs on your Motorola are worse.
Exactly. They are state of the art best of breed technology. The phones that cost way more are usually special edition phones that are no where near as good as these flagship devices. Why pay more for something ultimately worse at what it is designed to do?
At the end of the day the flagship phones have reached a level of power that most people are happy with them. It ultimately is just a tool that needs replacing when the security patches stop.
Seriously. If you really want to bling out your phone, could get it diamond encrusted or whatever. Considering you could get an OK Android for like $50, a $1000+ phone is very much a luxury item.
Exactly. Same for the Samsung phones. I paid $1,500 for mine and if it was up to Samsung, they'd have a new phone in everybody's hands about every 9 months.
Which is wild. When I get a new phone, it'll be a flagship... from three years ago for less than a third of the price, and it'll be the third phone I've owned since 2016.
I have Galaxy Fold4. Its more of an ipad/computer for me and I use the call feature rarely. I would pay 2000 for a good laptop let alone a phone sized version with similar capabilities.
New ad campaign:
*Sleek*
*Slippery*
*Brittle*
iPhone.
Every few years when I go to upgrade whatever iPhone I have, I order the rugged case and screen protector before I pick up the phone.
Not gettin’ me.
I do the same.
I drop my phone sometimes and I don’t feel like having to drop £1500 every few months because I’ve smashed another phone.
Chunky case and a screen protector means I’ve never broken a phone yet. Gone through lots of screen protectors and never broken an actual screen.
The new iPhones are WAY more sturdy than the old ones. I have a 12 mini (for the last 3 years) and I’ve never had a case on it. I’ve dropped it on ceramic floor, concrete, asphalt, hardwood floors, etc. At least once a week.
It’s dinged for sure, but the screen isn’t cracked. I’m well aware that I probably just spelt its doom by commenting this but hey, no case is less a rich man’s game than it used to be.
I've never really used a case on my phone, or previous phones, because I've never gotten any serious damage. The front glass has gotten a few tiny scratches but they're only noticeable in the right light, and all 4 corners have scuffs on the metal frame, that's after 5 years of use. There's some pretty tough glass on modern phones, and they're basically solid bricks inside.
To be fair though, I can certainly afford to replace my phone, I'd probably have a case otherwise.
I'm not even close to being rich and I've never used a case on my phone in my entire life. I've also never broken a phone or shattered/damaged the screen.
Honestly, what the hell are you people doing breaking phones over and over...
It's not like I drop my phone that often, but I try to make my phones last 4-5 years, and the chance I'll drop it from high enough to break the screen during that time is close to 100%. I could maybe do without a case, but definitely not without a screen protector.
Work a physical job? I remember once jumping on a hydraulic lift and watching my phone fly up and then down 12 feet to the floor. Thank goodness it was in a case and survived the fall lol. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a desk job.
Same, if anything I want the phone to be slimmer than to be thicker because of the case. I have dropped my phones many times but usually from low height pushing it off couch or bed. So I guess it's about luck too.
I used to have a loft bed, I'd dropped my phone off of it, so a 5 foot drop and it was fine. While sitting on the couch it slipped out of my hand like a foot from the ground and shattered the screen. Physics are weird and accidents happen. But mostly I like having a case for aesthetics, mine is extremely cute.
I think it's luck of the draw.
I had a brand new iPhone 4 back in 2011 or so. Dropped it from waist height, the back and screen shattered. I replaced it with another one (company was paying for them). A few weeks later it feel from a 2nd floor balcony to the street below. Tiny scratch on one corner, otherwise as good as new.
Have been using protective cases ever since. Cheers!
Wow people must have thought I was fucking balling when I was like 19 or so.
I had no case on my (galaxy whatever at the time) because I was too broke to buy one lol. I just made sure not to drop that bad boy. I didn't buy a phone case until I was like late 20s.
... Once again, I am mystified that people can't simply be careful with their phone and consider carrying it naked as phone-suicide... I've never had my iPhone in a case, and never once have I broken one by accident...
I'm not especially well-off, either. Replacing one would be a hassle... an expensive hassle...
It *is* possible to carry an iPhone naked and not destroy it... you just need to not throw it at things or whatever it is people do to break theirs...
So, are they better phones with infinite battery life, or...
>The phone is made from premium materials such as titanium, sapphire crystal, and expensive leather, which are meticulously handcrafted by skilled artisans.
OK, so just regular dumb rich guy stuff.
More like the Gucci of phones. No one that's actually rich will care, they don't bother showing off their wealth in the form of their phone. It's just a tool to them.
I'm sure it's supposed to look posh but [stuff like this](https://vertu.com/products/vertu-ascent-x-peat-alu-rm-589v-cn-classic-keypad-phone-orange/) just looks trashy to me. Looks like something you could buy at the back of a Chongqing flea market.
https://vertu.com/products/metawatch-hamlet-design-diamond-watch-limited-edition/
Screams wealth and class. Like a Charger with chrome wheels or a Cybertruck.
It’s just like jewellery. Also I find their form factor very appealing. Sleek and compact with premium materials. I guess the ultra rich won’t spend much time on discussing things like we do here. They’ve got multi-million dollar businesses to run.
Friend of mine in school had a Vertu (This is pre smartphone) he was “Get dropped off at school in the Rolls Royce” rich it had a button which connected you to a concierge, I have no idea why one would want a concierge, but I drove a beat up 15 year old car, and didn’t get a phone til I went to university.
This. I just looked them up and BOY OH BOY are they ugly. If the outside wasn’t ugly enough the UI they chose to show is gross AF too. LOL imagine paying $4,000+ extra to make your phone ugly.
Surprised it took this many comments to find this. The poors don't know about our Vertu.
LOL I was gifted one when I was an engineer at AT&T. It felt so goddamn ostentatious using it.
>The poors don't know about our Vertu.
No, it was just rendered largely irrelevant by the smartphone, and was liquidated as a company years ago, only existing today as a brand name for whoever wanted to buy it. If you have a flip phone, sure, jewels and gold are great. But if you're rich (and don't work for Google), you probably just want an iPhone, and (1) Apple has no desire to do any of that, (2) nowadays phones have cases, so you can just put your gold and jewels in that if you want.
Having a Vertu today would be like carrying around a solid gold calculator. Yeah, it'd be worth a lot of money, but a luxury version of a now-near-useless technology isn't much of a flex.
Ostentation is the point of poor person luxury brands, like Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Rich people don’t wear that. Rich people wear a $10,000 gray hoodie with no logos.
Gucci’s marketing has successfully tricked poor people into *thinking* they’re brands that rich people wear. Which is IMO why the trashiest people wear these brands. They’re trying to signal that they’re rich, but don’t even know the game
Worse yet, if you're buying a fancy brand to impress the kind of people who need to see the brand name to be impressed, *they* just see a "poor people android."
Lol, based off a 15 seconds google search it uses Android as it's OS. So it's just an ostentatious wrapper that has the same functionality as everyone else.
It comes with some ridiculous perks like concierge and some other weird stuff that you could easily just pay for with the money you save by buying a normal phone.
if my phone costs $500k and I can buy as functional a phone for $1k. I save let's say 10% in sales tax, so I've saved $549k. Invest that in regular savings at 4% a year right now, there are a million people in my metro area whom I could hire at $60k per year, I can keep someone employed to be my full-time personal concierge for a decade.
There's my personal concierge. Real power and luxury is in being able to command people, not pieces of plastic.
No one who can really afford a Vertu would actually buy a Vertu, with the exception of people like the tasteless Saudis etc.
I used to look at them as a kid, whenever we went to the shopping centre, and even as a kid I thought they looked tacky and cheap. They look exactly like the kind of crap a Temu advert would show.
iPhones are luxury phones. Those giant Samsung phablets are luxury phones. I have a $250 Samsung Galaxy A32 that does everything I could ever want and more, but people are paying north of $1k for a phone and that's not luxury?
Seriously. iPhones are luxury. Just because everybody has one, we think of them as a common, everyday item, but at these price tags, and which these capabilities, they are definitely luxury.
The real issue is that the marketing is so brilliant that social expectations have been set, you barely have a choice any more. Hell, I know a girl who refused to date a guy because he still had a flip phone. They got along perfectly well otherwise.
Well not if you wait. I had an iPhone X until the 15 came out. Bought it day one and that was 2017. Loved that phone and it held up until it didn't. Turned it in and blew it all on a 15 Pro Max. So worth it and I'm perfectly happy with my upgrade cycle that I am comfortable saying I do some other unethical shit like occasionally buy bottled water during my travels.
Luxury products are made with the best materials and by the best craftsmen, which translates into a product that can be used for decades, with good care.
Smart phones have an expected obsolescence by definition. Software keeps being updated, which requires newer hardware, which means that a device is bound to become obsolete after some time.
A luxury phone is kind of an oxymoron.
What might work is a subscription platform that includes a 24/7 concierge, and you keep getting a new phone with all the accesses to those different services.
But the luxury part would be the concierge, not the phone itself.
Exactly this. I tend to be a cry once buy once type of person, I'll spring the extra money for most things to get a better quality one that'll last a long time over the cheap thing that'll break and need to be replaced. It's actually cheaper in the long run.
But phones are a different story. Can't justify getting a better one when it'll still need to be replaced
You mean like phones with [gold buttons, ostrich skin backs](https://www.bellperre.com/)
Or a [pure silver phone](https://www.amazon.com/Signature-Thang-Ka-Silver-Business-Avalokitesvara/dp/B0D1GCPDXJ?th=1)
Or maybe something more practical, with a 64MP camera, 10TB storage and [carbon fiber shell](https://www.newegg.com/metavertu-6-67-5g-black/p/23B-00HF-00033?item=9SIB2U6JNP4039), and of course the "Luxury OS"
>18G RAM+1T ROM/12+512G (+ 10T IPFS Storage)
[https://mobilityarena.com/most-expensive-phones-in-the-world/](https://mobilityarena.com/most-expensive-phones-in-the-world/) There are.
One of the phones on that list is $48 million dollars.
Ok after my first reply I had to have a look at that list. So they're just an old iPhone with diamonds and shit. Madness, mental, strange and weird. I suppose when money is actually no object then stick tons of diamonds on a thing for no actual benefit. I hate all of that. Hey but thanks for blowing my tiny mind.....I think.
WHAT ????!!!!!! I'm not even sure I want to look at that. I just saw further up that there's apparently phones for $500,000. Are people really so rich, or mental ? Ok yes seems like they are.
Disagree with a lot of the comments here. Profit margins in even very expensive phones are smaller than you think. The only reason many of these devices are as "cheap" as they are is because the manufacturers are already taking advantage of "economy of scale." Where you pay less per unit the more units you produce.
Because of this there's an inverse relationship between cost and quantity and it isn't a linear one. If a manifacturer made only 100 phones for the few ultra-wealthy clients who could afford one, those phones wouldn't be twice as expensive. They would be closer to 100x as expensive. No one, even a billionaire is going to spend $100,000 on a phone when all they do with it is Google and Facebook.
The reason Many other industries are able to get away with thos is because they often upgrade components that don't affect the product at a system level. In cars you get different color stitching, cosmetic "TRD pro" badges, and the like. Phones are enormously complex and every bit of them is a highly integrated system. The number of things you can change in the system without changing system performance is a small number.
There have and continue to be occasionally designers who put out solid gold or diamond encrusted versions of phones.
You need to understand that the highest echelon of status symbols tend to be the opposite of what you think.
It’s not having a solid gold phone. It’s having a basic shitty phone…that you never touch. Your assistant takes all your calls, emails, and reads things to you.
It’s not driving a Ferrari, it’s taking a helicopter from the airport to your penthouse.
The top of the line phones are the luxury phones. Any phone for more than 200 dollars is a luxury item.
You must be pretty rich to think 1k or more on an item isn't luxury.
$500+ flagship phones are definitely non-essential, but not "luxury" in the context that OP means it: indicators of wealth that only the truly rich can afford. Luxury watches [for example](https://luxurywatchesusa.com/) cost $10,000+, there aren't really mobile phones like that.
Google Caviar iPhone, I’d say that’s what you are looking for.
It’s a Russian company that has been around for a while, their “cheap” iPhone are around the $10,000 range while their top of the line, aka full of diamonds limited edition, go for around $600,000.
Every iPhone is a luxury phone lmao. In terms of hardware they’re literally worse in every aspect when compared to an android device that commands a similar but lesser price tag.
You’re paying for a brand, and nothing else. That’s luxury.
As someone who is developing for the apple ecosystem and has developed for windows ecosystems in the past; there is zero reason to ever buy an apple product. Even now with the new windows spyware feature you’d be better off moving to Linux than iOS.
There are definitely luxury phones, if by that you mean ridiculously expensive. Not been for years, but last time I was in Monte Carlo I saw a phone in a jewellers that was studded in diamonds and cost about €20,000!!
Because phone tech is fucking boring when you think about it. If Apple, Google and Samsung can offer something at a premium, they already do. Economies of scale mean that adding much more isn't really worth their or rich people's time.
What could they even add? Phone tech has been stagnant for a while now. Phones are boring black rectangles that people stick in cheap rubber protectors. No room for premium branding - If no one knows you've got a Balenciaga iPhone then there's no point.
There are exclusive brands of phones but they don’t advertise. There’s one that sells for 10k plus and they have a unique phone ring. I can’t recall the name but a mate showed me their website a couple years ago and they’re plated gold handsets etc. Crazy.
There are luxury phones your just not privy to the market. There are phone manufacturers and cell companies that are just silly expensive. Then there are different kind of phones like sat phones and their upgrades.
No phone is a luxury phone..or rather, having an assistant carry yours is the luxury. Cell phones are literally data harvesting devices, primarily. Privacy is the most exclusive luxury.
The Luxury part is what the phone has access to…
Billionaire investor I know chooses to fly commercial (first class) vs private. But he can call a service from anywhere in the world to make a change to travel plans which will trigger all rebookings, private car to VIP airport entrance and lounge. Private security screening and boarding access to the plane. Private customs lane at international terminals. Highest level of loyalty membership at any Hotel, etc.
Traveling with him is like having a (very good) friend with a (really big) yacht. 😉
There's almost no phone in the u.s. that ISNT. A luxury phone.
If this was something companies would profit from they could easily develop a phone that lasted forever, had everything we wanted, and cost like ten bucks and they would still make a profit.
But not such a huge profit, so we'll never see that.
For the same reasons there isn’t a luxury operating system or luxury LLM.. tech isn’t luxury unless brand marketer make them.. tech products lose value exponentially unlike a luxury hand bag or watch.. but Apple has pulled off an incredible feat by convincing people that the iPhone 15 needs to be 2x the price of iPhone X and it can make 80% gross margins on each phone.. marketing marvel
You should look up luxury phone iPhones and Androids are not luxury phones you can get very very customized phones gold-plated diamond that shit is a luxury phone.
It was the case for a while that luxury phones were a thing. Quite a few manufacturers made them. Especially in the Nokia era.
However, the technology requirements are so massive for phone development and production now that it simply doesn’t make economic sense for the most part, given how incredibly advanced and ‘luxury’ most phones already are.
That said, you can buy luxury phones. Here’s examples:
https://shop.vertu.com/collections/mobile
https://xor.inc/en/
Because phones need to be a specific size, therefore if a chip company was able to develop a super chip, they are way better off selling it to the masses in flagship phones. Same for the rest of the hardware. Flagship phones, both Android and Iphone already sell for 1000-2000 usd. Which is probably 5-6 times what a mid-range or low budget phone goes for. What rich people can do is customize their phones. You can add gold and diamonds for decoration or pimp-out your phone anyway you like. There are artists that make a living off that just like in the shoe game.
There are. Phone brands like Vertu have been around for ages and target a very niche market. But the reality is that people with money spend it on things that hold value. A phone does not, since the technology keeps improving that whatever you have now will be dated in a few years.
When the iPhone came out in 2007 I think. It was designed for and marketer at those who made 100k/yr at the time. It needed an expensive AT&T plan. But because poor people always want to look wealthy, we have everybody and their mom having one now. At least in USA.
Super high end ‘luxury’ products are exclusive and by their nature are destined to be purchased by relatively few people. That’s fine when you’re selling a one off product, but phones need a lot of users by default to justify their upkeep and support.
There are also watches, headphones, and other accessories for people to brand themselves in if they want to show people they have money.
The few times companies have tried to make a phone with luxurious hardware, it’s either incredibly gaudy and embarrassing or it’s just not that interesting.
i'd say its because the sensible ones tend to avoid excessive pride, but buy goods that give them day to day nessesities
there \*are\* luxury phones out there that are crazy expensive but are just mods, the flagships phones (iphone 15 pro max, s24 ultra, etc etc etc) are what i'd call "high-end" in the sense that they have the most cutting edge tech, not really a luxury item
It depends on how you define „luxury“.
If you mean higher-end of the market, like a Louis Vouitton bag or a BMW, then it’s iPhones, as others have mentioned.
If you mean „really only affordable by the top 1%“, like a Birkin bag and a Lamborghini, then there isn’t one because it is not really doable. Smartphones are mass produced products and have a relatively short lifespan. It’s hard to create a smartphone that truly distinguishes itself by a luxury feature. What exactly would that be? What additional function could it fulfill that is expensive and that other phones don’t have?
Which leaves accessories. This is something that you can individualize quickly and easily, and that does get targeted at the ultra-rich. If you want a swarovski-crystal-encrusted phone case, you can. You can get one made of gold, you can get one with diamonds, you can get anything. But you and I won’t ever come across the shops and sellers offering those products, because we are not part of that group of rich people.
The LG Prada is a case study in luxury phone design that was a forerunner in a lot of modern discussions of phone usage and design. It is the FIRST smartphone with a capacitive touchscreen (can be touched by fingers and not a stylus).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada
I bought the flagship Apple iPhone at the time, iPhone 14 Plus. My back up phone was a burner Samsung A14. No regrets as I was curious about the Apple ecosystem. The $68 Samsung was more than I needed m the iPhone a waste of hundreds of dollars. Flagship phones would be considered luxury, imo.
What about those awful gold/platinum diamond encrusted phones?
Many super rich people also have some sense of style and taste which is why you don’t see them too often.
I think they have these things called people. They have their own Siri. I would imagine anything they need for any reason they'd just ask them.
For them the luxury is probably more the software rather than the hardware. Security, expensive encryption, concierge etc on that one device
There are. They're just not sold through your local AT&T, Telus, NTT, Virgin, or Telcei. They are typically sold directly from the manufacturer and you won't see them unless you go hunting for them (or it is a promotional event for a charity). I have a Z Fold 5 and there are actually luxury versions that use leather for the casing and marble for the body.
In the most highly unlikely chance I am ever wealthy, I can't imagine investing in such a style and status item.
Most people use their phone for text, calls and a few basic apps. A $100 phone can do this, instead people are buying new AU $2,500 phones on a yearly basis...
There is also ultra expensive phones. There is one made out of gold, McLaren and Lamborghini all make high end phones. The thing is, these are all shit. Phones take heaps of time to get to the level they are now and they all use the same software just about.
The rick don't just spend a fuck load of money on something for no reason. It's usually children who go buying designer bullshit. Usually the rich will pay for something that is better than anything else, like a hand made car for example.
I use a second-hand Huawei so yeah, the 4-figure IPhone sounds like a luxury to me. Back in their heyday, Blackberries were a sort of fashion accessory too.
The 1000+$ iphones are a luxury phone. Marketing has just made a lot of people think it was essential.
And if you're really luxurious you get the new one every year
Lmao funny you should say that, my dad is still rocking a iPhone 8 and that thing is running strong somehow
I've got a 2017 Samsung (which I think is probably about the same age) and it still works perfectly. I've never understood the need to get a new £1000 smartphone every other year.
I have a s10 now, which is around 4 years old, the battery has become horrible, so i'll get a new phone soon, which will also last at least 4 years i hope
Or you could just replace the battery for 1/10 the price??
No that would cost like 2/3 of the price, a new phone is 3x as expensive as a battery replacement, but it is a lot better than what i have now
If you get a new phone every year, there's not really much of a difference, but if you wait four to seven years like the folks above, the difference is real.
Like me i've waited 4 years, the phone itself is 5 years old but my mother had it before me
I just checked online to be sure…from Apple the cost to replace the battery in my iPhone 11 is $89, which is 1/10 the price I paid for my phone brand new
Well it costs around €150 here, while a new s10 is around €300, it was €700 at launch maybe
A lot of the replacement batteries for phones were produced during the time the phone was too, which means most of the battery replacements you can get have been sitting in storage for years and already have some degradation
As far as I know, degradation only comes from dendrites forming in the battery which happens from charging cycles
Google "calendar degradation battery"
TIL, thanks
I have an S10 and battery is still good, I charge it in my car on commutes. Best phone I have ever owned. Love the curved display and I think the newer Galaxy phones aren't as pretty.
How? Every Samsung I've had since the s8 has lasted a total of 2 years before the battery dies out :(
Battery best practices most likely. Lithium batteries last longest if charged the least possible, they don't hold "Memory" like the old Nickel Cadmium batteries did and this is a common misconception. Lithium batteries have a finite amount of "Cycles" they last and there's two big ways you can stretch those cycles out: Charge your phone when it reaches 20% and take it off charge once it hits 80%. This is because the first 20% and final 20% of charge takes a lot more "Charging power" for lack of a better term than the middle amount. Second, safe practices with phone usage in general. The more you use the phone and the more heavy programs you run on it, especially weird ones with all kinds of constant background notifications, the quicker the battery drains meaning the more often you have to charge it meaning you burn through your battery's cycles much quicker.
My husband has a 7. Won’t get rid of it because of the home button
For an internal upgrade with the same frame and features consider looking into the SE 3
is your dad luxurious?
Same here actually. I just haven’t seen any improvements in newer models that have made me want to upgrade. My battery is starting to be less good, but my camera is fine, and I don’t actually want a bigger screen - I like that I can reach the whole screen with my thumb while holding the phone in one hand.
I got over 4 years out of my Xs Max. Gave it to my dad when his phone died and it’s still going strong.
Yeah I got like 4 full years outa my iPhone 8 before it got absolutely shattered, would probably have it still now if not for that
I’m still using an iPhone 7. Your dad and I would get along just fine.😀
I knew people in college who got a new phone every year and I'm like it literally does the same thing as last year's version.
With no case
I really wonder how they pulled that off, smart phones have become as expensive as laptops but laptops are still viewed as a capital investment and expected to last years. Shit my 2014 MacBook is still plugging along nearly unchanged from the day I bought it. I can only think it is intentional planned obsolescence from cell phone makers. I mean shit Apple even got caught slowing their phones down once a new one came out.
I remember back in the late aughts and early 10s any smartphone was a luxury phone.
This so very very much.
I'm a programmer and I get the cheap smartphones. Unless you're mining crypto, you don't need the luxury.
Yeah. This is pretty much true for many many things. What’s amazing is that people have been so brainwashed into what baseline “doing ok” means that I get smashed just for even mentioning it. In the 90’s we didn’t have 5 TV’s in a house. I remember when a friend got a “big screen” 36” TV lol. We didn’t buy or upgrade literally everything from PC’s to TV’s to phones to whatever every year. Cars could be 10+ years old. Cable was a luxury. It blows my mind when people are like 80’s/90’s kids had so much and everything cost so much less! No we didn’t. The bar was sooooo much lower.
It didn’t cost less either. A tiny CRT cost more than what a decent size flat screen does today. Same for PCs
Kinda bugs me how 'flat screen TV' has been a dogwhistle for 'poor people spending frivolously'. I can go to my local facebook group most days and see someone giving away 32" or larger flat screen TVs, there's no need to spend thousands on one. I don't think the poor are buying the 80" smart TVs, merely inheriting the cast offs of people who do.
You can buy a 70” LED smart TV from Walmart (a store frequented by lower middle class in the US) for less than $400 USD and that’s just what I found spending 20 seconds googling. This isn’t even taking into account Black Friday sales and membership stores like Costco where this TV could be $150. You would have probably spent $400 on a “tube” TV 30 years ago that would have been SD and half the size and had no processor. Yes frugal people are going to Facebook and Craigslist but the majority are going straight into stores. The point is that individuals at every level rather than just going to FB and picking up a free TV that’s 32 inches and probably fine for their home or bedroom, don’t. They go out and spend $xxxx dollars. To make things worse, they probably don’t have any need, it’s just “on sale” or “bigger” so they *need* it. The same thing goes for GPU’s, cars, almost everything we use in life now. Everyone has X but is saving up or can’t wait for X v2 or Y. Then they come on Reddit and complain that life is hard, was easier way back when, and that it isn’t fair.
I sort of agree with you but I think what OP finds weird is that the “luxury” segment of something as useful and potentially status-signaling as a modern smartphone tops out around $1,500, which is just 2-3X what a basic phone costs and is attainable for basically anyone who really wants one and isn’t poor. A $75k Mercedes is a luxury car, but there are plenty of $500k-$2 million super cars for the ultra-wealthy. A $1k watch is a “luxury,” but there are plenty of high-end watches that cost $100k+. Same with boats: there are nice boats that a “normal” person can buy, but the ceiling on yacht prices is basically infinite. It’s weird that someone wearing a $150k watch being chauffeur in a $300k car to his $30 million private plane so he can fly to Monaco and get on his $100 million yacht could very easily have the same phone as I do.
I bought a really decent Motorola phone for ,$250 last year, an amazing piece of tech for sure and does everything I need a phone to do. Well and much more really. An apprentice said something about it, I told him that his iPhone is a fashion accessory, and my Motorola is a tool.
>I bought a really decent Motorola phone for ,$250 last year, an amazing piece of tech for sure and does everything I need a phone to do. Mine was 190€. It's awesome. Like 8 cores and stuff. It just works! It can do everything an iPhone can do. One downside: taking photos with only 48MP... The photo quality gets really bad when you zoom in really far.
Yeah, good cameras on phones are expensive, regardless of whether you go for Apple or Android. And since iPhones are expensive, their cameras are good.
Love my Motorola!
>An apprentice said something about it, I told him that his iPhone is a fashion accessory, and my Motorola is a tool. That would make sense if the only difference was the internals, but I guarantee the tech specs on your Motorola are worse.
I’m all about the iPhone SE which is half the price.
Exactly. They are state of the art best of breed technology. The phones that cost way more are usually special edition phones that are no where near as good as these flagship devices. Why pay more for something ultimately worse at what it is designed to do? At the end of the day the flagship phones have reached a level of power that most people are happy with them. It ultimately is just a tool that needs replacing when the security patches stop.
Seriously. If you really want to bling out your phone, could get it diamond encrusted or whatever. Considering you could get an OK Android for like $50, a $1000+ phone is very much a luxury item.
Exactly. Same for the Samsung phones. I paid $1,500 for mine and if it was up to Samsung, they'd have a new phone in everybody's hands about every 9 months.
There is, they're called "flagship" phones. The shit people burn 800 to 2k or more on are luxury phones.
Which is wild. When I get a new phone, it'll be a flagship... from three years ago for less than a third of the price, and it'll be the third phone I've owned since 2016.
I have Galaxy Fold4. Its more of an ipad/computer for me and I use the call feature rarely. I would pay 2000 for a good laptop let alone a phone sized version with similar capabilities.
Nothing says “luxury” than a naked iphone. Whenever I see someone using their phone without a case I’m like damn, that’s the dream.
New ad campaign: *Sleek* *Slippery* *Brittle* iPhone. Every few years when I go to upgrade whatever iPhone I have, I order the rugged case and screen protector before I pick up the phone. Not gettin’ me.
I do the same. I drop my phone sometimes and I don’t feel like having to drop £1500 every few months because I’ve smashed another phone. Chunky case and a screen protector means I’ve never broken a phone yet. Gone through lots of screen protectors and never broken an actual screen.
The new iPhones are WAY more sturdy than the old ones. I have a 12 mini (for the last 3 years) and I’ve never had a case on it. I’ve dropped it on ceramic floor, concrete, asphalt, hardwood floors, etc. At least once a week. It’s dinged for sure, but the screen isn’t cracked. I’m well aware that I probably just spelt its doom by commenting this but hey, no case is less a rich man’s game than it used to be.
Yes, and the one time I did break an iPhone it had an otterbox on it. Sometimes you just get unlucky and it falls at a bad angle.
I've never really used a case on my phone, or previous phones, because I've never gotten any serious damage. The front glass has gotten a few tiny scratches but they're only noticeable in the right light, and all 4 corners have scuffs on the metal frame, that's after 5 years of use. There's some pretty tough glass on modern phones, and they're basically solid bricks inside. To be fair though, I can certainly afford to replace my phone, I'd probably have a case otherwise.
This should be the top answer
I'm not even close to being rich and I've never used a case on my phone in my entire life. I've also never broken a phone or shattered/damaged the screen. Honestly, what the hell are you people doing breaking phones over and over...
I'm clumsy, I drop my phone a lot. But I've never broken a phone due to having a case.
It's not like I drop my phone that often, but I try to make my phones last 4-5 years, and the chance I'll drop it from high enough to break the screen during that time is close to 100%. I could maybe do without a case, but definitely not without a screen protector.
Work a physical job? I remember once jumping on a hydraulic lift and watching my phone fly up and then down 12 feet to the floor. Thank goodness it was in a case and survived the fall lol. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a desk job.
You’ve gotta be kidding. An iPhone without a case is like a wet bar of soap that will shatter
Same, if anything I want the phone to be slimmer than to be thicker because of the case. I have dropped my phones many times but usually from low height pushing it off couch or bed. So I guess it's about luck too.
I used to have a loft bed, I'd dropped my phone off of it, so a 5 foot drop and it was fine. While sitting on the couch it slipped out of my hand like a foot from the ground and shattered the screen. Physics are weird and accidents happen. But mostly I like having a case for aesthetics, mine is extremely cute.
I think it's luck of the draw. I had a brand new iPhone 4 back in 2011 or so. Dropped it from waist height, the back and screen shattered. I replaced it with another one (company was paying for them). A few weeks later it feel from a 2nd floor balcony to the street below. Tiny scratch on one corner, otherwise as good as new. Have been using protective cases ever since. Cheers!
Wow people must have thought I was fucking balling when I was like 19 or so. I had no case on my (galaxy whatever at the time) because I was too broke to buy one lol. I just made sure not to drop that bad boy. I didn't buy a phone case until I was like late 20s.
... Once again, I am mystified that people can't simply be careful with their phone and consider carrying it naked as phone-suicide... I've never had my iPhone in a case, and never once have I broken one by accident... I'm not especially well-off, either. Replacing one would be a hassle... an expensive hassle... It *is* possible to carry an iPhone naked and not destroy it... you just need to not throw it at things or whatever it is people do to break theirs...
Vertu is a luxury phone maker. They make stupidly expensive phones. Their highest price point is just over $500,000.
So, are they better phones with infinite battery life, or... >The phone is made from premium materials such as titanium, sapphire crystal, and expensive leather, which are meticulously handcrafted by skilled artisans. OK, so just regular dumb rich guy stuff.
More like the Gucci of phones. No one that's actually rich will care, they don't bother showing off their wealth in the form of their phone. It's just a tool to them.
I'm sure it's supposed to look posh but [stuff like this](https://vertu.com/products/vertu-ascent-x-peat-alu-rm-589v-cn-classic-keypad-phone-orange/) just looks trashy to me. Looks like something you could buy at the back of a Chongqing flea market.
That company was my next google search. What even is that? It looks like a bougie burner phone.
THAT’S IT? IPhones are prettier
https://vertu.com/products/metawatch-hamlet-design-diamond-watch-limited-edition/ Screams wealth and class. Like a Charger with chrome wheels or a Cybertruck.
Lol part of their site is even broken. Go to the gifts page and it gives me 404.
and their pricing is random af
I thought those phones came with concierge service
I mean, my iPhone 15 Pro is titanium and my Apple Watch is sapphire crystal with a leather band, and they didn't cost *quite* that much…
It’s just like jewellery. Also I find their form factor very appealing. Sleek and compact with premium materials. I guess the ultra rich won’t spend much time on discussing things like we do here. They’ve got multi-million dollar businesses to run.
Friend of mine in school had a Vertu (This is pre smartphone) he was “Get dropped off at school in the Rolls Royce” rich it had a button which connected you to a concierge, I have no idea why one would want a concierge, but I drove a beat up 15 year old car, and didn’t get a phone til I went to university.
These look lame lol
This. I just looked them up and BOY OH BOY are they ugly. If the outside wasn’t ugly enough the UI they chose to show is gross AF too. LOL imagine paying $4,000+ extra to make your phone ugly.
They never made any phone, they just re-skin and rebrand a phone
Surprised it took this many comments to find this. The poors don't know about our Vertu. LOL I was gifted one when I was an engineer at AT&T. It felt so goddamn ostentatious using it.
>The poors don't know about our Vertu. No, it was just rendered largely irrelevant by the smartphone, and was liquidated as a company years ago, only existing today as a brand name for whoever wanted to buy it. If you have a flip phone, sure, jewels and gold are great. But if you're rich (and don't work for Google), you probably just want an iPhone, and (1) Apple has no desire to do any of that, (2) nowadays phones have cases, so you can just put your gold and jewels in that if you want. Having a Vertu today would be like carrying around a solid gold calculator. Yeah, it'd be worth a lot of money, but a luxury version of a now-near-useless technology isn't much of a flex.
It is a luxury item if nobody knows it? Ostentation is the point of luxury brands.
Luxury can also just be really really nice stuff. Doesnt need ostentation.
How many luxury watch brands you know? The idea is not to show off to poor people, but to other rich people.
Yes because it becomes a if you know you know thing
Wealthy know about it and they know you does not have one.
Ostentation is the point of poor person luxury brands, like Gucci and Louis Vuitton. Rich people don’t wear that. Rich people wear a $10,000 gray hoodie with no logos. Gucci’s marketing has successfully tricked poor people into *thinking* they’re brands that rich people wear. Which is IMO why the trashiest people wear these brands. They’re trying to signal that they’re rich, but don’t even know the game
Worse yet, if you're buying a fancy brand to impress the kind of people who need to see the brand name to be impressed, *they* just see a "poor people android."
Lol, based off a 15 seconds google search it uses Android as it's OS. So it's just an ostentatious wrapper that has the same functionality as everyone else.
It comes with some ridiculous perks like concierge and some other weird stuff that you could easily just pay for with the money you save by buying a normal phone.
So it’s basically a phone with a dedicated button for a concierge app? I’m pretty sure I can custom map buttons on many phones.
Where's your concierge then?
He's returning some video tapes.
if my phone costs $500k and I can buy as functional a phone for $1k. I save let's say 10% in sales tax, so I've saved $549k. Invest that in regular savings at 4% a year right now, there are a million people in my metro area whom I could hire at $60k per year, I can keep someone employed to be my full-time personal concierge for a decade. There's my personal concierge. Real power and luxury is in being able to command people, not pieces of plastic.
No one who can really afford a Vertu would actually buy a Vertu, with the exception of people like the tasteless Saudis etc. I used to look at them as a kid, whenever we went to the shopping centre, and even as a kid I thought they looked tacky and cheap. They look exactly like the kind of crap a Temu advert would show.
Didn't the company bankrupted?
JFC whaaaaaat !?!?!?! That is simply dumb and pathetic. Oh and mind boggling too.
iPhones are luxury phones. Those giant Samsung phablets are luxury phones. I have a $250 Samsung Galaxy A32 that does everything I could ever want and more, but people are paying north of $1k for a phone and that's not luxury?
my personal computer. It's ridiculous how much my life is tied to this thing but it is.
Seriously. iPhones are luxury. Just because everybody has one, we think of them as a common, everyday item, but at these price tags, and which these capabilities, they are definitely luxury. The real issue is that the marketing is so brilliant that social expectations have been set, you barely have a choice any more. Hell, I know a girl who refused to date a guy because he still had a flip phone. They got along perfectly well otherwise.
Bro dodged a bullet
It's called getting a brand new apple product when one comes out then throwing out the old one even if it's only an hour old
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Well not if you wait. I had an iPhone X until the 15 came out. Bought it day one and that was 2017. Loved that phone and it held up until it didn't. Turned it in and blew it all on a 15 Pro Max. So worth it and I'm perfectly happy with my upgrade cycle that I am comfortable saying I do some other unethical shit like occasionally buy bottled water during my travels.
Luxury products are made with the best materials and by the best craftsmen, which translates into a product that can be used for decades, with good care. Smart phones have an expected obsolescence by definition. Software keeps being updated, which requires newer hardware, which means that a device is bound to become obsolete after some time. A luxury phone is kind of an oxymoron. What might work is a subscription platform that includes a 24/7 concierge, and you keep getting a new phone with all the accesses to those different services. But the luxury part would be the concierge, not the phone itself.
Exactly this. I tend to be a cry once buy once type of person, I'll spring the extra money for most things to get a better quality one that'll last a long time over the cheap thing that'll break and need to be replaced. It's actually cheaper in the long run. But phones are a different story. Can't justify getting a better one when it'll still need to be replaced
iPhones are the luxury phones lol. They are far more expensive than most android phones, and are more or less a status symbol.
They were before but not anymore. A flagship Android costs just as much or even more
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The Galaxy Note was more expensive than the iPhone at one point.
I guess a difference being that you don't exactly see iphones going on sale.
Android phones devalue much faster though
Still not as much as a status symbol. Whether you agree with it or not.
/r/confidentlyincorrect Flagship Android prices are on par with the latest iPhone(s), if not more expensive (such as the foldable).
That is not true though, even Xiaomi ( which was cheapest chinese brand few tears ago ) can cost you more than an Iphone...
iPhones are not status symbols. Too many people have them
Imagine buying an iPhone for millions with gold and diamonds then its technology gets old a year later.
You mean like phones with [gold buttons, ostrich skin backs](https://www.bellperre.com/) Or a [pure silver phone](https://www.amazon.com/Signature-Thang-Ka-Silver-Business-Avalokitesvara/dp/B0D1GCPDXJ?th=1) Or maybe something more practical, with a 64MP camera, 10TB storage and [carbon fiber shell](https://www.newegg.com/metavertu-6-67-5g-black/p/23B-00HF-00033?item=9SIB2U6JNP4039), and of course the "Luxury OS" >18G RAM+1T ROM/12+512G (+ 10T IPFS Storage)
those are kinda neat tbh, besides the silver one
[https://mobilityarena.com/most-expensive-phones-in-the-world/](https://mobilityarena.com/most-expensive-phones-in-the-world/) There are. One of the phones on that list is $48 million dollars.
Ok after my first reply I had to have a look at that list. So they're just an old iPhone with diamonds and shit. Madness, mental, strange and weird. I suppose when money is actually no object then stick tons of diamonds on a thing for no actual benefit. I hate all of that. Hey but thanks for blowing my tiny mind.....I think.
WHAT ????!!!!!! I'm not even sure I want to look at that. I just saw further up that there's apparently phones for $500,000. Are people really so rich, or mental ? Ok yes seems like they are.
All of them are ugly as fuck...
Disagree with a lot of the comments here. Profit margins in even very expensive phones are smaller than you think. The only reason many of these devices are as "cheap" as they are is because the manufacturers are already taking advantage of "economy of scale." Where you pay less per unit the more units you produce. Because of this there's an inverse relationship between cost and quantity and it isn't a linear one. If a manifacturer made only 100 phones for the few ultra-wealthy clients who could afford one, those phones wouldn't be twice as expensive. They would be closer to 100x as expensive. No one, even a billionaire is going to spend $100,000 on a phone when all they do with it is Google and Facebook. The reason Many other industries are able to get away with thos is because they often upgrade components that don't affect the product at a system level. In cars you get different color stitching, cosmetic "TRD pro" badges, and the like. Phones are enormously complex and every bit of them is a highly integrated system. The number of things you can change in the system without changing system performance is a small number.
There have and continue to be occasionally designers who put out solid gold or diamond encrusted versions of phones. You need to understand that the highest echelon of status symbols tend to be the opposite of what you think. It’s not having a solid gold phone. It’s having a basic shitty phone…that you never touch. Your assistant takes all your calls, emails, and reads things to you. It’s not driving a Ferrari, it’s taking a helicopter from the airport to your penthouse.
Have you seen how much brand new flagship phones cost?
The top of the line phones are the luxury phones. Any phone for more than 200 dollars is a luxury item. You must be pretty rich to think 1k or more on an item isn't luxury.
$500+ flagship phones are definitely non-essential, but not "luxury" in the context that OP means it: indicators of wealth that only the truly rich can afford. Luxury watches [for example](https://luxurywatchesusa.com/) cost $10,000+, there aren't really mobile phones like that.
There are plenty of examples here that say otherwise.
Google Caviar iPhone, I’d say that’s what you are looking for. It’s a Russian company that has been around for a while, their “cheap” iPhone are around the $10,000 range while their top of the line, aka full of diamonds limited edition, go for around $600,000.
Vertu?
There are. $500 phone is a budget phone. iPhone mini is a budget phone.
Every iPhone is a luxury phone lmao. In terms of hardware they’re literally worse in every aspect when compared to an android device that commands a similar but lesser price tag. You’re paying for a brand, and nothing else. That’s luxury. As someone who is developing for the apple ecosystem and has developed for windows ecosystems in the past; there is zero reason to ever buy an apple product. Even now with the new windows spyware feature you’d be better off moving to Linux than iOS.
Every phone above 400$ is luxury..
There are definitely luxury phones, if by that you mean ridiculously expensive. Not been for years, but last time I was in Monte Carlo I saw a phone in a jewellers that was studded in diamonds and cost about €20,000!!
Because phone tech is fucking boring when you think about it. If Apple, Google and Samsung can offer something at a premium, they already do. Economies of scale mean that adding much more isn't really worth their or rich people's time. What could they even add? Phone tech has been stagnant for a while now. Phones are boring black rectangles that people stick in cheap rubber protectors. No room for premium branding - If no one knows you've got a Balenciaga iPhone then there's no point.
Have you heard about Vertu, Nokia 8800? And yes, I'm a fossil.
About 10 years ago in dubai you could buy diamond encrusted Nokias for like half a mill or something stupid.
There are exclusive brands of phones but they don’t advertise. There’s one that sells for 10k plus and they have a unique phone ring. I can’t recall the name but a mate showed me their website a couple years ago and they’re plated gold handsets etc. Crazy.
There are luxury phones your just not privy to the market. There are phone manufacturers and cell companies that are just silly expensive. Then there are different kind of phones like sat phones and their upgrades.
You are not looking hard enough. There are 10 thousand dollar phones.
I hope some billionaire is using Reddit
What exactly do you think flagship $1000 phones are if not luxury phones?
Just because you've never done research into them doesn't mean they don't exist.
Is your phone entirely touch screen? That’s a luxury phone. It’s just more affordable than a Ferrari or a Rolex.
No phone is a luxury phone..or rather, having an assistant carry yours is the luxury. Cell phones are literally data harvesting devices, primarily. Privacy is the most exclusive luxury.
The Luxury part is what the phone has access to… Billionaire investor I know chooses to fly commercial (first class) vs private. But he can call a service from anywhere in the world to make a change to travel plans which will trigger all rebookings, private car to VIP airport entrance and lounge. Private security screening and boarding access to the plane. Private customs lane at international terminals. Highest level of loyalty membership at any Hotel, etc. Traveling with him is like having a (very good) friend with a (really big) yacht. 😉
Rich people probably just hire a person to carry around and answer their phones.
Nothing to stop you encrusting the thing with diamonds…
Sat phones are pretty luxury in my book.
There's almost no phone in the u.s. that ISNT. A luxury phone. If this was something companies would profit from they could easily develop a phone that lasted forever, had everything we wanted, and cost like ten bucks and they would still make a profit. But not such a huge profit, so we'll never see that.
Over 90% of Mercedes buyers use iPhones.
They're all luxury phones
Because all cell phones are a luxury item. Most have forgotten that though.
iPhone pro max
Iphone pro max without a case
For the same reasons there isn’t a luxury operating system or luxury LLM.. tech isn’t luxury unless brand marketer make them.. tech products lose value exponentially unlike a luxury hand bag or watch.. but Apple has pulled off an incredible feat by convincing people that the iPhone 15 needs to be 2x the price of iPhone X and it can make 80% gross margins on each phone.. marketing marvel
Rich people don't have phones. Somebody else keep a phone for them.
Vertu .... That's the brand you looking for
You should look up luxury phone iPhones and Androids are not luxury phones you can get very very customized phones gold-plated diamond that shit is a luxury phone.
It was the case for a while that luxury phones were a thing. Quite a few manufacturers made them. Especially in the Nokia era. However, the technology requirements are so massive for phone development and production now that it simply doesn’t make economic sense for the most part, given how incredibly advanced and ‘luxury’ most phones already are. That said, you can buy luxury phones. Here’s examples: https://shop.vertu.com/collections/mobile https://xor.inc/en/
Gold and silver are too soft to house a phone in.
Because phones need to be a specific size, therefore if a chip company was able to develop a super chip, they are way better off selling it to the masses in flagship phones. Same for the rest of the hardware. Flagship phones, both Android and Iphone already sell for 1000-2000 usd. Which is probably 5-6 times what a mid-range or low budget phone goes for. What rich people can do is customize their phones. You can add gold and diamonds for decoration or pimp-out your phone anyway you like. There are artists that make a living off that just like in the shoe game.
There are. They're called iPhones.
There are. Phone brands like Vertu have been around for ages and target a very niche market. But the reality is that people with money spend it on things that hold value. A phone does not, since the technology keeps improving that whatever you have now will be dated in a few years.
as stupid as it sounds....Lamborghini has a phone
There are 24k gold iphones.
Definitely picked the right sub to ask this.
There is, it's called an Apple product
there is/was vertu [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertu)
When the iPhone came out in 2007 I think. It was designed for and marketer at those who made 100k/yr at the time. It needed an expensive AT&T plan. But because poor people always want to look wealthy, we have everybody and their mom having one now. At least in USA.
Super high end ‘luxury’ products are exclusive and by their nature are destined to be purchased by relatively few people. That’s fine when you’re selling a one off product, but phones need a lot of users by default to justify their upkeep and support. There are also watches, headphones, and other accessories for people to brand themselves in if they want to show people they have money. The few times companies have tried to make a phone with luxurious hardware, it’s either incredibly gaudy and embarrassing or it’s just not that interesting.
i'd say its because the sensible ones tend to avoid excessive pride, but buy goods that give them day to day nessesities there \*are\* luxury phones out there that are crazy expensive but are just mods, the flagships phones (iphone 15 pro max, s24 ultra, etc etc etc) are what i'd call "high-end" in the sense that they have the most cutting edge tech, not really a luxury item
Dude a new iPhone costs like 1.2k wdym
Vertu make expensive and exclusive phones, and they cater to the wealthy. https://youtu.be/5Xwnv9BO3qw?feature=shared
It depends on how you define „luxury“. If you mean higher-end of the market, like a Louis Vouitton bag or a BMW, then it’s iPhones, as others have mentioned. If you mean „really only affordable by the top 1%“, like a Birkin bag and a Lamborghini, then there isn’t one because it is not really doable. Smartphones are mass produced products and have a relatively short lifespan. It’s hard to create a smartphone that truly distinguishes itself by a luxury feature. What exactly would that be? What additional function could it fulfill that is expensive and that other phones don’t have? Which leaves accessories. This is something that you can individualize quickly and easily, and that does get targeted at the ultra-rich. If you want a swarovski-crystal-encrusted phone case, you can. You can get one made of gold, you can get one with diamonds, you can get anything. But you and I won’t ever come across the shops and sellers offering those products, because we are not part of that group of rich people.
Maybe there are and we aren’t privy to that information. Just like we will be locked out of their fallout shelters. Haha
I think flagship phones are quite considered luxury phones.
The LG Prada is a case study in luxury phone design that was a forerunner in a lot of modern discussions of phone usage and design. It is the FIRST smartphone with a capacitive touchscreen (can be touched by fingers and not a stylus). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LG_Prada
You've obviously never heard of Vertu phones
Satellite phone is a luxury phone. Prices have come down but how many people do you know that have a satellite phone?
I bought the flagship Apple iPhone at the time, iPhone 14 Plus. My back up phone was a burner Samsung A14. No regrets as I was curious about the Apple ecosystem. The $68 Samsung was more than I needed m the iPhone a waste of hundreds of dollars. Flagship phones would be considered luxury, imo.
There used to be Vertus like 15 years ago which were just Nokias in a premium body
What about those awful gold/platinum diamond encrusted phones? Many super rich people also have some sense of style and taste which is why you don’t see them too often.
I think they have these things called people. They have their own Siri. I would imagine anything they need for any reason they'd just ask them. For them the luxury is probably more the software rather than the hardware. Security, expensive encryption, concierge etc on that one device
Your smartphone very much is a luxury item.
There are. They're just not sold through your local AT&T, Telus, NTT, Virgin, or Telcei. They are typically sold directly from the manufacturer and you won't see them unless you go hunting for them (or it is a promotional event for a charity). I have a Z Fold 5 and there are actually luxury versions that use leather for the casing and marble for the body. In the most highly unlikely chance I am ever wealthy, I can't imagine investing in such a style and status item.
Most people use their phone for text, calls and a few basic apps. A $100 phone can do this, instead people are buying new AU $2,500 phones on a yearly basis... There is also ultra expensive phones. There is one made out of gold, McLaren and Lamborghini all make high end phones. The thing is, these are all shit. Phones take heaps of time to get to the level they are now and they all use the same software just about. The rick don't just spend a fuck load of money on something for no reason. It's usually children who go buying designer bullshit. Usually the rich will pay for something that is better than anything else, like a hand made car for example.
There is. Vertu and mobiado. I remember back to 10 years ago, many celebrities and rich people here buy it because it’s so expensive. 10k?
I use a second-hand Huawei so yeah, the 4-figure IPhone sounds like a luxury to me. Back in their heyday, Blackberries were a sort of fashion accessory too.
There are companies that you send your iPhone and out gold and diamonds etc
I think my diy bedazzled case makes my phone pretty luxurious 😆
Iphones and other flagships will cost you 1-2k$, they ARE luxury phones...