
Cheapest iPhone has a more powerful processor than the most expensive Android - matheussampaio
https://www.androidcentral.com/cheapest-iphone-has-more-powerful-processor-most-expensive-android-phone
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Someone1234
The cheapest iPhone is also as expensive as some mid-range Android devices and
completely inaccessible to a large chunk of the world's population.

When a device that most will spend $449 on is "cheap" you have to admire
Apple's price anchoring[0], they release a $1249 flagship and suddenly what
the largest iPhone 5S flagshp cost ($442.09 inflation adjusted to 2020) at
launch is considered "cheap."

It is undeniably a nice phone, but we've all lost sight of how much any of us
should be spending on smartphones when $449 is celebrated for being a bargain.
We've lost perspective.

PS - This isn't exclusively an Apple thing. Google's "bargain" Pixel 3a is
essentially the same price.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_(cognitive_bias)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_\(cognitive_bias\))

[1]
[https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2013/09/16iPhone-5s-iPhone-5c...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2013/09/16iPhone-5s-iPhone-5c-Arrive-
on-Friday-September-20/)

~~~
djannzjkzxn
Lots of people are spending many hours a week on their phones. And that time
is noticeably more enjoyable with a better-functioning phone. I think it’s
rational to compare the cost of phone to the cost of something like a car,
appliance, or couch and consider how much value you get out of it for how many
years when deciding whether the price tag is worth it. Personally, I’d pay at
least a dollar an hour to always use a nicer phone, and that pays for a higher
end phone every few years.

Consider the case of someone who is upgrading from the iPhone SE they bought
four years ago. $100/year seems like a pretty good deal for their next phone.

~~~
dzhiurgis
> I’d pay at least a dollar an hour to always use a nicer phone

That's 75% of a minimum wage in Montana.

~~~
lonelappde
Units error and fact error.

Min wage in Montana is $8.50/hr .

And it's probably not healthy to be on your phone 8hrs a day.

But if you are, then a $1000 phone is only 25cents/hr over 2 years, when you
can resell your phone for half price.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Saw some map showing Montana min wage is $4. Even if you use your phone 8hrs a
day (a ton of people do for work), you own it for 24. So that's $24 a day.

It all a bit pointless math for HN crowd, but it does give some perspective -
there are places where pay is very low and you don't even need to look far.
People do actual work on their phones there.

~~~
djannzjkzxn
The US has a federal minimum wage of $7.25. Maybe some state has a lower
minimum wage law, but if so it isn’t in force.

If I were making minimum wage I’d probably be more in the “buy an iPhone SE
every 4 years” rather than “buy a top iPhone every 2 years” category.

But if I are going to critique other people’s spending patterns, I’d start
with anyone who bought a new car, not a phone.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Someone has to buy them, but I always are shocked how people can afford them,
especially at something like 10% interest rate.

------
mdasen
> Apple is laying out a roadmap for exactly what Google needs to do with its
> own chips.

To ask the question: why would Google make better processors than Qualcomm?

Apple has immense economies of scale at the high-end because that's the only
thing they sell. Google's processor would be more niche than Qualcomm's (since
manufacturers would need a Qualcomm modem to go with it rather than just
grabbing an integrated Snapdragon modem/CPU) and it would be smaller than
Apple's in sales since high-end Android phones aren't the main part of that
market. This seems like one of those instances where people believe that
Google can do better in any market. Google is a great, smart company, but
we've seen them fail a lot too. Android Wear didn't take off with Tizen
becoming Samsung's wearable OS and Google eventually buying Fitbit. We saw
Google buy Motorola just to sell them off as a failed experiment. We've seen
Google Fiber stall out as Google couldn't make it work. The Nexus/Pixel line
has been ok, but it hasn't changed the industry. Chromebooks seem to be
fading.

Why should Google be able to enter the mobile CPU game and do better?

Not only that, but would manufacturers even want something better?
Manufacturers want customers to keep buying new phones as often as possible.
If Google comes out with a CPU that's 70% better and could last a customer for
4-5 years, would they want to buy it? Apple is really unique in that they're
the only company really giving you a good experience for an extended period of
time. But part of that is that Apple knows that a good device from them
creates loyalty because there's no iOS alternative. If you're an Android
manufacturer, you know that a customer's choice for their next device could be
any number of different brands offering nearly identical Android experiences.

Does this even matter for Google? What part of Google's bottom line would this
help? More people using Android devices certainly helps, but would a better
processor convince iPhone users to move to Android?

I guess I'm failing to see how a better processor helps Google enough to
justify spending all the R&D on it and why Google would be better at building
this processor than the companies already creating mobile processors. For
Apple, it gives them a differentiator and the ability to control their
platform and their destiny - and likely control their laptop platform in the
near future. They can specifically target the CPU and build what makes sense.
For Android, this CPU might be 10% of Android devices, but it wouldn't become
an assumption. It wouldn't create loyalty for a manufacturer since the same
CPU/OS combo could be had via other options. We're just talking about
increasing the price and complexity of a device they don't want to continue
supporting anyway.

And I still haven't seen why Google would be able to beat Qualcomm, Samsung,
HiSilicon, etc.

~~~
lonelappde
Qualcomm forces obsolence to keep chips expensive with short lifespans of
compatibility with OS upgrades, driving up TCO and killing resale value.

Eventually Google will stand up to them or else lose the phone war in wealthy
developed nations.

~~~
scarface74
They’ve never had any meaningful market share on the high end.

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baq
i don't care.

what i care about is that the cheapest iPhone has a longer support period than
the most expensive Android. it's actually insane and infuriating because I
don't even like Apple but there literally is no other choice if you don't want
to switch your phone every two years.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
It really depends on what support you need - yes, the latest and greatest
bling is dropped soon, but Samsung offers 4 years of security updates - that's
quite a bit of time. You'll probably have a really bad battery by that point
and it's probably worth an upgrade. You won't have all the latest and greatest
OS bling, but you wouldn't have the latest and greatest anything but that
point, and that's probably OK.

~~~
debian3
I don’t understand; bad battery = phone replacement.

Bad battery = battery replacement

~~~
Anthony-G
Particularly so when you consider the environmental impact of _new battery_
compared to _new phone + new battery_. The difference in price for the
consumer does not reflect the true costs.

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SECProto
And yet, my cheap android phone has two things that are infinitely more
important to me: an aux port and an SD card slot. My phone would be
fundamentally less usable (for me) without them, while quicker switching
between apps etc would be a minor benefit at most.

Chasing statistics (Fastest processor! Most megapixels! Longest battery life!)
becomes useless after a certain point. Processors and megapixels are long past
being a deciding criteria, while battery life (and picture quality, for that
matter) still are important.

~~~
D13Fd
Honestly, what do you use the SD card for?

Even with movies for flights, I haven’t filled a phone up in years.

~~~
SECProto
Carrier data for phones is expensive. I use it to store media (podcasts and
music) so I can pay for minimal monthly data. I bought a 128gb microSD card 3
or 4 years ago, meant I could save several hundred dollars (twice now!) by
getting a mid-range phone with 64gb storage.

Edit: for fun I did a quick cost comparison. I drive a lot and listen to music
and podcasts. 40,000km a year. If I streamed, I would have to upgrade my plan
(+$10 a month minimum) and my phone (+$150/2yrs). Purchase price at the time
was $100. So over the 3.5 years I've had this sd card, I've saved a net $620.

~~~
pensatoio
I’m not sure this answers the question. I understand why having an SD card
feels good, but in practice, you can fit tons of movies, music, and audiobooks
in even just 64gb. It’s certainly a balance between all the factors that makes
an SD card an attractive choice for _you_ , but I think for the overwhelming
majority of people, long-term updates/support are going to be far more
valuable, even if they don’t realize it.

~~~
SECProto
The question was, "what do you use the SD card for?". I answered. Other things
you mentioned:

* I just checked, and my phone storage is actually only 32gb. I misspoke.

* It's quite close to full with just a month worth of pictures and all my audio stored on the SD card.

* My last security update was 3 weeks ago. The manufacturer who made my phone committed to 3 or 4 years of security updates. That said, Apple does a much better job of making feature updates available for their products.

* The article is about how "powerful" the processor is, and I would still contend that that is irrelevant for any cell phone user I know.

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TremendousJudge
Tell me when it can use that powerful processor to run an engine other than
webkit

~~~
new_realist
Use an enterprise cert.

~~~
Someone1234
To sideload what? Is there a non-WebKit browser around for iOS you can
sideload with an enterprise managed iOS device?

------
MR4D
“Cheapest Porsche has a more powerful engine than the most expensive Hyundai”

You’d never read that anywhere, but it’s true.

Why people on HN care about phones so much is beyond me. Between fanboys and
envy, it’s a weird world. I mean, tech is great, but this “mine is bigger than
yours” is kinda old. (Or maybe I’m old....ok, I’m definitely old.)

Buy the phone that works for you and be happy with it.

~~~
yowmamasita
Why are you on HN if you do not expect to see such? And this is not fanboy-ing
or envy, it's about economy of compute. I'm sure you'd see that in the forum
about car engine enthusiasts.

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mappu
The SD865 still draws less total power for the same workload.

The A13 is a huge core with better-than-Skylake IPC, that trades blows with
Skylake++ 9900K or Zen 2 3950X in many real-world benchmarks, despite the much
lower TDP and clock speed:

[https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15609/SPEC-S865.png](https://images.anandtech.com/doci/15609/SPEC-S865.png)

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fomine3
Apple A processors are continuously performs excellent since Apple A7.
Significantly, A7 is almost first ARMv8 SoC that released before 2 years from
first ARMv8 Snapdragon(that's worst SD810).

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simonh
Huh, they’re still claiming Android phone screens are better because of bigger
numbers. How quaint.

[https://youtu.be/dcFXEXJicgc](https://youtu.be/dcFXEXJicgc)

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Let's be honest, not all Androids are alike, apparently the Pocophone is half
the price of the iPhone in that case, and they both have LCDs screens, so they
are both behind the curve in terms of screen tech.

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ac29
Sure, but its the same processor as in all current iPhones. I guess "most
expensive iPhone faster than most expensive Android phone" isn't quite as
click-grabbing. Apple's SoCs have been faster than Qualcomm's for a number of
years, so this is hardly news worthy either.

------
dzhiurgis
A lot of people who don't know much what iPhone gets you won't care about CPU.

I wanna upgrade my in-laws from cheap, spyware ridden Androids that can't even
withstand a video chat. It will be quite hard with the screen that looks like
it's half a decade old.

------
hateMyIdeas
Serious question, has anyone installed Android on their iPhone?

I love the idea of budget iPhone, but I hated iOS.

Does it work as smooth as Pixel?

~~~
google234123
The great software and drivers (IOS) is why Iphones are so smooth. Not the
hardware.

~~~
tssva
I'm confused by your comment. Which is it? Do they run great software or iOS?

~~~
philosopher1234
What’s wrong with iOS?

~~~
tssva
Browsers are limited to using the built-in webkit engine, many default
applications are fixed to Apple applications and can not be replaced as the
default by a 3rd party app, apps can only be installed from the Apple App
Store, support for PWAs is poor, and the UI/UX doesn't provide good
discoverability of functionality (This seems to affect most Apple products but
for some reason people here seem to think Apple has great user interfaces. For
the worse example of this see tvOS.).

Also when switching providers iOS has a habit of sometimes getting into a
state where it will refuse to send SMS or MMS messages. This has plagued it
over many versions with the only resolution being to wipe the device and not
restoring any backups because restoring will then break the functionality
again. I know several people who have been hit by this and the support forums
are filled with this happening to people.

The latest news is that since version 6 receiving certain email can lead to
your phone being compromised even if you don't open the email. Which reminds
me of another point. Despite Apple's best efforts there still exists software
and/or devices available to governments which can subvert the security
protections on iPhones. Also don't forget that time when receiving certain
text messages could lock up iPhones.

That is just a short list of a few of the ways iOS is not great. You can argue
it is better than some other systems but that still doesn't make it great.

~~~
philosopher1234
These seem like minor/non issues

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bhhaskin
This is just clickbait.

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zzapplezz
Clickbait headline.

Author conveniently forgets to mention that the 865 has hands down better AI
performance which is considered a key benchmark for high end devices. Multi-
core perf is neck and neck.

[https://techyorker.com/qualcomm-snapdragon-865-vs-
apple-a13-...](https://techyorker.com/qualcomm-snapdragon-865-vs-
apple-a13-bionic-comparison/#AI_Machine_Learning)

~~~
muizelaar
There's no AI benchmark at that URL.

~~~
zzapplezz
True, but there is a multi-core benchmark. Makes the claims in the headline
and article presented here suspect.

