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Comment by znpy | Hacker News Reader

That's probably because smartphones are way too expensive.

Huawei and Xiaomi sold a lot of phones because their phone are good enough not to make people miss iphones and stuff yet cost only a fraction.

Personally, I got a brand new Xiaomi phone for 200 euros off Amazon with a 4-core cpu, 5.5 inches display, 64 gb storage and 4 gb ram. So far it served me good and has done everything I've needed.

I got an iPhone 6 from work for on-call availability, and it is actually superior in many ways, but despite this in no way I'm going to drop 800-1100 euros on a phone.

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My cousin bought a Xiaomi Pocophone for $250 and I was blown away by specs and smooth experience.

8 cores, 6GB ram, 64GB internal storage, 4000 mAh battery, good cameras and screen. The list goes on.

It's not hard to imagine this type of product eating higher end's breakfast.

Yes, it's the reason I bought the p20. I'm just not comfortable spending 1k on a phone. It's not just the total price but I just feel duped for being charged 100$-200$ more every generation for something that only improves very marginally.

I always felt that good technology makes things cheaper, faster, and gets out of your way. Increasingly high end smartphones don't feel like this at all.

> Personally, I got a brand new Xiaomi phone

Make sure to go over apps preinstalled (system apps) and disable them or take away their network permission, if nothing else.

NetGuard, NoRoot Firewall, Glasswire are some of the apps that let you do that.

Why? Because it's Chinese?

The amount of Sinophobia on here is ridiculous.

> Why?

Its good hygiene to rid of apps you have no use for. Note: Pre-installed apps on OHA devices include Google's, too: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on...

> Because it's Chinese?

- Because its Android: https://techscience.org/a/2015103001/

- Because its Xiaomi: https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/xiaomi-phones-secretly-sen...

Huawei, OnePlus, Nokia have been caught spying on users, too. Lenovo, famously, MiTMd TLS on their laptops. So, really, its the OEMs. And also the SoC vendors and Carriers: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17081684 I digress.

> The amount of Sinophobia on here is ridiculous.

Not sure about that, but you might be onto something.

And Apple increased prices even further because they saw this coming (might as well be a self-fulfilling prophecy though).

I purchased a new iPhone 6 for under $200 cash about two years ago. You can get them a little cheaper now.

yes but what's the point ?

you get no warranty and the battery is already mostly consumed. my work's iphone 6 battery has already started underperforming after a few months, I guess it's not going to see the end of 2019.

I wouldn’t buy a 6, but you can buy A refurbished iPhone 6s from Amazon for $169 with a 90 day warranty and there is a battery indicator to tell you how good the battery is in settings.

The 6s is still getting updates and probably will for at least one more release if not to.

A battery replacement for your 6 - which may be over four years old at this point - is $79.

Why would the battery be consumed in a new phone in the box? Or why would Apple not give you a normal warranty?

I don’t have any issues with battery life and I’ve had this phone about 2 years now. The Battery Health in settings shows a max capacity of 87%.

I’m not concerned about a warranty on a $200 phone - at this point I could throw it out the window at a rock and get a new phone. That’s one reason I have a cheap older iPhone. I don’t worry about losing or damaging it.

> That's probably because smartphones are way too expensive.

I used to buy new phones every generation when they were $3-400.

And back then that money would land you a noticeably better phone, usually with some new capabilities.

These days “good” phones are $1000+ and each generation only gets you better specs.

Fuck that. I’m keeping my working phone. Peak smartphone was probably 3-5 years ago. Since then there’s been nothing really new.

I wouldn't say nothing new. It looks like a lot more are starting to add dual SIM to their phones (Apple can do it with eSIM, Samsung has been doing it since at least the S7)...But, I can also get a dual SIM Huawei for $400 less, that has roughly comparable specs for what I want.

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