I didn’t realize the bands on the 4/4s were stainless. Learned something new. Heck I had even changed a screen on one of those way back in the day. My point is though since the 5 aluminum has been fine but now that they went back to stainless aluminum is cheap junk now to the people who only worry about specs. Most spec conscious people won’t keep a phone long enough for either to even matter anyway.
Thing is from bom view point, aluminum is cheaper than steel. Can’t escape that. In one point in time aluminum was more valuable than gold, not anymore though.
I believe your mistaking spec conscious with price conscious. It depends entirely on how much disposable income consumers have to spend on mobile phones.
I would rather pay less and get more “phone” than have stainless steel any day, but I’m glad it’s offered for the people who care. Choices are always best and competition between companies are always best. Android has made Apple stronger and vise versa. Being that I like Apple (and android as well, literally my whole family has iPhones or I would be on android)
Well that depends on the consumer. Some pay less, some pay more, value on the other hand is dependent on other factors, such as demand outpacing supply.
If you were to resell the xr you would for much less than an Xs could, another way to put it, the xr will never be worth more than an Xs or x, because of bom, with steel commanding a higher price than aluminum. I won’t bring android into this simply because they don’t have much value after initial sales, almost none after a year. Apple products and iPhones are another matter entirely.
I’m glad that the android OEMs have stepped their game up in their flagship and mid range phones making Apple also have to have a “mid range” Xr for people like me that just don’t care to spend $1k plus for a phone. The iPhone 5c was a good exhibit of what Apple used to consider a mid range phone before android OEMs stepped up their game.
Yeah, I believe we disagree here. The xr is not a midrange phone, not even close.
3d biometrics, nvme storage, a 7nm processor, 8core npu, 4K @ 60fps.....it’s a rather long list. Apple is offering the xr at a midrange price but it is by no means a midrange phone, not according to its hardware, in fact it’s hardware outperforms 2018 flagship devices, and apple is offering it at a price point below what flagship android handsets currently retail for.
Android oems still have not stepped up their game, maybe in 2019 or 2020, but currently their hardware is severely lacking, throwing some extra ram or some extra pixels to the display is far from upping their game.
In fact most android oems high end smartphones have completely collapsed due to weak sales and weak demand. Samsung, HTC, lg, pixels, Sony, all have collapsed in the passed two years.
Samsung has a particularly bad year this year, their quarterly results were released yesterday and they are particularly disappointing, perhaps they will have better luck next year or not.
I feel like Motorola is probably a big reason the Xr is as good as it is. The G6 is an all glass and aluminum phone for less than $300. While the specs aren’t as good as the Xr, the G series phones sell way more for Motorola than any of their other phones because they are good quality for a good budget. Samsung and lg are starting to make better mid range but most are still all plastic and cheaply built.
Sorry but this is complete gibberish.
Motorola hasn’t fully recovered since google bought them ran the business into the ground, gutted them, and sold the name for scrap to Lenovo.
What you interpret as good value actually destroyed the company, google was subsiding phone costs pushing Motorola into lower price point hoping to gain market share, thereby destroying brand value that was once associated with the company.
Over the past year Lenovo sales have collapsed as well in India and China, Motorola are not faring any better under its stewardship. Once again due to weak sales and weak demand for their products.
Samsung and Lg midrange phone are not doing well either, they are in a decline fending off cheaper handsets from Chinese companies with almost no overhead or legacy software to contend with.
While the Xr is 3x the price of the G6 I still think you get enough of the iPhone X/Xs/Xs max experience that a lot of mid/older flag ship android people would think its a good enough value to maybe jump ship and I think Apple thinks that as well.
That’s the thing the xr is not a midrange device given its hardware, as I listed above. There will be a huge influx of android users switching over the next year to apple and iOS due to the Xr/x/Xs/Xs max offering hardware and software that simply currently cannot be matched by anything android or its oems offer.