Eli5: how did we get to the point where laptops and phones are in the same price range ?
In: 16910
Let’s go back to 2005. Phones were fairly standard, very poor internet connectivity if any, and was mostly just for buying ringtones or games. Laptops at the time weren’t as advanced as they were now, but there was so much more you could do with a laptop than you could with any phone.
Over the years, when smart phones became a thing, the gap between laptops and phones became much less. We can now use our phones to do quite a lot that laptops allow us to do. While phones cannot replicate a laptop completely, they have the added benefit of portability.
That’s one side of the story, the other is brand loyalty and peer pressure. Today, you can get a perfectly good, midrange phone for less than €200. It won’t be a Samsung or iPhone, but it will absolutely do the job. So you can buy a phone for much less than a laptop which is relatively of the same quality. A laptop for less than €200 would absolutely not be anywhere close to one for €500 or more.
The issue is, everyone can see what phone we have, it’s almost as much a fashion accessory as it is a piece of tech. Laptops don’t have this issue, if my laptop is an old beaten up piece of crap, nobody will know. But if I dare to have an Android instead of the new iPhone, a lot of people see that as an excuse for mockery. People are willing to pay more for phones as it makes them seem better in the eyes of their peers. It’s like wearing expensive jewellery or designer clothes.
TLDR: Phones now replicate much of the functionality of laptops but also are seen as a status symbol, where previously they were not.
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