Same. A lot of voices saying "I would totally buy..." and then an excuse comes up when it's time to actually buy. (no shade, I've been guilty of this myself)
If your max price point were $600 or something, sure, but once you’re above $1k what’s the difference? You already value it greatly.
2k is two times 1k. There are many things that I would not buy for double the price.
In your example where you were sold on a $20k car, would the car being $20,499 stop you from buying it?
To be clear, I’m not criticizing anyone balking at a $1,600 phone. I’m expressing skepticism at marketing a GrapheneOS phone at that price point.
Yeah, well, to me flagship is a one-word descriptor for "overpriced and enshittified device for suckers". Just in this case, now that the OS seems to deliver, it's the hardware. If you don't offer 3.5 mm audio, active stylus, full-feature USB-C 3.x+, and a uSD slot with a good enough screen in a slab you can get lost. It's that simple.
Just those 2 alone disqualify a lot of the market. I'd like to have both, but I'm currently typing this on a pixel 9 with neither simply because the market isn't there for them.
And Lenovo (Motorola)? For me, so far, nothing. Unless this or next year's successor to the Moto G Stylus 2025 model comes with a much better USB-C port (i. e. not just that cheap 2.0 garbage), runs on GOS, keeps the audio jack as well as the dedicated uSD slot, and improves the not-so-hot stylus.