Spending too much on any phone like a brainless monkey is no good so wake up and read

I recently bought a phone, a smart one!! Yeah!! 😉

So this was my first thought, for a product which costs very little to manufacture (compared to selling price), you end up paying extra costs for advertising. People waste precious productive time trying to acquire it and to add to that they feel an emotional connect to it.

I did not want to spend too much money on phone neither I wanted to make emotional connect with a Phone. So I spent 7000 INR (~$130) bucks to buy Moto E. But that is not the agenda, I am talking about this obsession of owning a super expensive smartphone.

Yeah lets take a scenario of two statements:

a) I own a fascinating smart phones which has a glistening high resolution screen, powerful camera, extra ordinary battery life, has a great connection contract, the large number of supported apps mean that I can keep this single device for both my professional and personal needs.

b) I own an iPhone.

Now think of the impact which second statement makes, it’s massive isn’t it? Why? I will tell you because it conveys your status and more importantly it says that you have spent quite a handsome amount on buying the phone which does exactly what is done by statement (a).

Now lemme tell you a fact there were over 300 million iPhones in active use by December 2013 and yet if you own one you are unique, HOW??

Apple or Samsung or HTC or any company for that matter sells their high end product at a stupendous price which btw is manufactured for very less. Amazed, not really, you probably knew it. Then why do they charge such a hefty amount? Because they spend too much in advertising and promoting and running tests rejecting models etc. but primarily it is advertisement. You pay so much not for the product but the ad which made you buy the product. So watch this one:

Now this advertisement boosted the sale of iPhone to a hell lot, but look closely how many of iPhone features are talked about in this ad?

By the way did you know that selling a product at out of the world prices is a PR/Sales strategy for luxury goods? If something is cheap it is not a status symbol, hence it will not be bought by rich people, and middle class will not “dream” of “owning it”. And if it is priced at a lesser margin then it will remain unaffordable for some and yet of no interest to rich. This is the reason why successive phones still continue to remain pricier than previous while cost to manufacture them and need for advertising comes down.

I am not asking anyone to stop buying iPhones or Samsung S5 or HTC 1 M8 or whatever, so proud owners please do not release a fatwa against me. However, my $120 Moto E, does everything I want from a smartphone, it tells me directions, news, views, good blogs on WordPress, get all the knowledge on Quora, stay connected to Twitter, watch videos on youtube/coursera, let me edit docs/excels and entertains me when I need it to.

Nonetheless it is your hard earned money so it is your decision to spend it on a product that you need or on advertisement campaigns of a super expensive product.

P.S.: I am not promoting any Moto product whatsoever.
P.P.S.: I am not anti-iPhone, in fact I love their designs but that doesn’t change the fact that they are overly priced.