Eli5 Why is it that a new television costs about 1000 dollars, it has android, a chipset, wifi etc, while a phone wich is much smaller, but has also a chipset etc, also costs 1000 dollars ?
In: Technology
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Smaller, more intrinsic technology to fit in to the space. The quality of the housing, the function. Tiny technology is more expensive to produce than something 20 times its size.
With the phone you are paying for small tech, including battery, cameras, mobile technology and a lot more processing power.
In a tv you save all those things but you pay for more glass and pixels.
The short answer: because it’s smaller.
A slightly more complex answer is because the phone has more components, like front and rear cameras, video and audio encoders, cellular broadcast/receiving hardware, a battery that can power the device for a couple of days, protective glass, touch screen, and more. All that has to be packed into something that fits in your pocket.
TVs have a plastic chassis, no space or power limitations.
Then there are market reasons. There is less competition in the phone market. There are a gazillion people making TVs.
For smartphones you are paying for all of the miniaturized tech in a very compact package. Every component of the device is usually cutting edge or groundbreaking in some way, whether it be double the megapixels on the camera over the last generation, a faster SoC that is able to dissipate heat better, a longer battery life, greater pixel density on the screen, wireless charging, the latest wireless radio technology, etc.
For televisions you are basically paying for the screen per inch. Some more expensive televisions have some features like localized dimming, better color accuracy, low latency mode for gaming, etc. Sometimes you see new technology like vibrating the screen to produce audio, but mainly it’s the screen size that you’re paying for. The smart device features that come in your television are usually really low-powered budget android (or other OS) chips from years ago.
The bill of materials for the iPhone 12, is supposedly around $406
https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_12_pro_bom_come_up_to_406-news-46442.php
It sells for more than double that, but they still have to pay for R&D, marketing, shipping, warranty, etc. The most expensive components are the cellular modem, display, and processor. A tv won’t have a cellular modem, and it’s processor is probably not going to be top of the line (most people will just use it to watch videos, which many lower end processors will do just fine with hw acceleration built in). Tv also won’t have cameras, battery, waterproofing, etc.
I’m not sure how much the display itself would typically cost in a $1000 tv, it’s certainly bigger than the one in the phone but not necessarily higher resolution.
Edit:
That being said if you look at mid or lower end / last years model you can get tvs and phones a lot cheaper. This could be due to lack of demand, stores wanting to get rid of unsold stock, production costs going down with practice (higher yields), and probably other factors as well.
Your $1000 phone is probably waterproof. Drop your $1000 TV into the river for 30 minutes and see how it works after.
Large TVs are mostly material cost from all the lights and circuits they have to use for the screen to project a larger image with good quality while phone cost come from the use of complex robotics to make incredibly small parts as well as the fact these smaller parts require more pure elements and compound to reduce interference
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