Apple devices mostly aren‘t significantly more expensive than their counterparts by other manufacturers.

However, most of those offer cheaper alternatives that Apple doesn’t. While the most expensive Samsung S25 is more expensive than the equivalent iPhone, Samsung also sells models under 100€. That does skew the perception towards Samsung being more affordable.

Which it is, of course, if you don’t care about the extra amenities of more expensive phones.

Well yeah, that's pretty obviously the point of this post

You can buy a brand new iPhone 16e starting at $599.

This logic is outdated. The top of the line iPhones are no more (and sometimes a bit less) than comparable Android flagships.

Their base models come in around high-midrange Android, true. But some of the specs (CPU/camera) still beat out Android phones at their price range. Heck on CPU they often beat more expensive Android phones.

I'm not saying that because I'm a fan of Apple it's just like, it's not just them. I've had something like 9 Android phones and 6 iPhones. Really in the end they aren't that different day-to-day.

So we’re upset with Apple because they don’t make low budget options?

Please send a link to a new Samsung under 100€/$.

Samsung is in a contest with apple to see who can suck the most ass. So I don't think that's a fair example to ask for.

I don't know the current exchange rate, but I feel like $599 is significantly more than <100€

I don't think I've paid more than that for a pixel, and I have bought a 256 GB Pixel before. I feel like that $600 apple phone has 32 GB storage or something absurd

Most companies are.

I’m not the one claiming the existence of a new sub-100 euro Samsung.

https://a.co/d/6KuHnDN

iPhone batteries don’t blow up like pixels.

$111 and released 2 years ago. But still, closer than I thought. Amazon 3rd party seller is kinda cheating though.

But my question remains, are we upset with Apple because they haven't provided a low budget option? There are so many good reasons to be angry with companies; "Their products are out of my price range" is like the lamest one.

I've had like 5 and I have zero idea what you're referring to

It's true, they just get nerfed into planned obsolesce which causes the company to get sued.

Didn't see any indication anyone would say that. If they did, that would be delusional.

Lol Apple fans have strong feelings about their tech choices. Defending Apple in social media gets you 5% off your next purchase of nearly the same hardware stretched across different formfactors as "choice"! Never change consumers.

Wait until you hear what the fix is for the exploding Pixel batteries

Oh I'm aware. Apple set the trend just like they did with the pricing of non Apple devices.

The Samsung A06 was launched (in Germany) in May (2025) and you can get it for ~80€.

Anyway, we're not talking about being angry with Apple, we're talking about why Apple is perceived more expensive/less affordable than Android. The reason: they don't have cheap/inexpensive phones (or anything inexpensive in any category). Apple is marketed as a premium brand, has premium prices, and we're making fun of that.

Apple's discounting strategy is generally to sell last year's model, sometimes the model before that, with roughly $200 discounts for each year since its release. They sometimes release a lower spec model (the 16e is the current example, prior SE models or even the mini models from previous generations were part of this strategy as well) and that sometimes means the 2-year-old model isn't kept available as long.

That's where their 5-7 year support window really shines, in that they can just sell older models as discounted models, knowing that the new owner will still get 3-5 years of support.

The other thing is that the used market for iPhones is pretty robust. I can go buy used phones that are 3 or 4 years old and still get a good 1-4 years of additional support. At least in the U.S., if you told me my budget for a phone was gonna be $300 for the next 2 years, I think I'd probably buy a used iPhone.

As it currently stands, I'm still on Pixels on a 2 year cycle, but I also know that my "sell used to offset the price of my new phone" strategy also would be much cheaper if I did it with iPhones instead of Pixels.