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...on smartphone pricings

At first, I wanted to write about the iPhone and its ridiculous pricing.  Ganya karang kana ucap tia "fanboy jua ia ani" and bla bla bla.  So I try to instead, being all neutral.

What I want to focus on this time is the pricing of the smartphones nowadays, especially those flagships.  I mean, how did they end up charging customers beyond 1k is just absurd.  What is so special about that said phone to justify the price?

I remember back in 2012, when I was still looking for my first perfect Android phone (my first Android phone was HTC Wildfire S and it was not perfect), I told myself to not spend beyond BND700.  During that time, iPhone 4S was still hot but the pricing was again, ridiculous (I remember online market sold it for BND1500+).  Again, I got budget of less than BND700 and looking for a smartphone that standouts among the others.  "Spend it wisely" I said.  I was not going to spend it based on just beautiful device or being latest.  I wanted the phone to do what others cannot do. 

And that's when I have decided to purchase a Galaxy Note II.  Why did I choose it? 

  1. It has stylus or S-Pen (I want to be productive)
  2. It has the best performance (on par with iPhone 4S)
  3. It has the best camera of that time
  4. It has the best screen of that time (beating iPhone 4S).
Money well spent? I'd say so, and I still use it now (as secondary phone, primarily for surfing the internet).  Yes it did slows down (so is the iPhone 4S) but still usable.  Still loving the experiences of editing, shooting videos on Note II.

Fast forward, its latest brother, Note 8 costs around BND1200+.  For me, that's not really the issue and I'd say (still) it's a worthy purchase if you did.  Me?  Hehe, I'm now with Galaxy S7 and still liking this simple phone.

Now, what about iPhones?  Especially iPhone X and its cousins iPhone 8.  Does it really worth beyond BND1000?  At time of I'm typing this, iPhone X still costs around BND1600+ at the base unit.  It just made me cringe, roll eyes.  What makes this phone so special that their gay CEO want to charge their sheeps that premium?  Because of the screen? Come on, they before this bashed Samsung's flagships, saying that AMOLED screens are oversaturated and their retina display is even better.  Edge to edge screen?  Please...don't get me started with the ugly notch.  Because of the speed?  Maybe.  Appstore? With an ever increasing knockoff apps?  Nya orang Brunei, kebalikan pasal dulu they criticised Playstore as having a lot of knockoff apps.  And the list goes on.

So you still want to buy it?  Okay go ahead.  Ada yang cakap, "at least iPhone ada update malar..."  and I was like, "yeah okay, the super buggy software updates that kills your battery and make your devices slower than before? Good luck with that!"

Don't get me wrong, I do have Apple's devices (iPad 2, iPad Air, iPhone 5s) so I'm not anti Apple here nor the Apple's sheep.  What I'm trying to say is, think a lot and spend your hard-earned cash wisely.  If you ask me for recommendations, I will gladly suggest you to get iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus.  It is sub-thousand dollars, has an excellent camera and literally still new.  iPhone 8?  No don't get that, it is basically iPhone 7 being slapped with glass chassis.  Iphone X? A definite no!  Get Note 8 or Galaxy S8 instead.  Hate Samsung?  Try LG's phones.

To close this rant,  there are a lot of other brands that cost much less for specs and experiences better than the iPhone X.  I've tried LG G5, Vivo's and Huawei's phone.  Want my suggestion?  Leave comments in the comment section and I will gladly help you out.  See you in the next article.

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