Absolutely nothing. An oh shiny screen and In theory it has the fastest cpu in any mobile phone ever, but that is 100% meaningless as there is no use for the performance it offers. Even £150 - £250 phones like the Umidigi Crystal, Ulefone T1 / Power 2, LeEco Le Pro 3, Zte Nubia Z11 Mini, Vernee Apollo and so on are already total overkill and cover every possible need.
I have been trying for two years to find a upgrade to my Oppo. I can't. It really has stagnated *that much* that it's pointless. I hate it, because I always used to buy a new phone every year but the Oppo is specced just as well as any £300 phone now so I would be pretty stupid to fork out for air. IIRC the only phone I would consider an upgrade was a lime/gold Sony with a 6" screen. I do like my phablets. But I couldn't justify the £300 price tag. Plus when it comes to listening to music my Oppo is the dog's nuts.
I am considering it only because : 1) iPhone prices are insane outside of SE variant, and i don't want the SE. It is just too small. Plus i need Dual SIM phone anyway. 2) i have a Lenovo Vibe X3, a so called flagship from Lenovo. Left rotting at Android Marshmallow, July 2016 security patch, 10 or so months after launch. Thus i need something which actually gets updates from either community or manufacturer. Lenovo and Moto ruled out because of this.
Lenovo are bad for not updating, I had a tablet which never got an update and Lenovo pretty much told me where to go when I asked about it.
$999 is £736.43. 20% VAT is £147.29, bringing that to £883.72. There's actually no import duty to pay on smartphones - they're Section XVI: 85: 17 "Telephone sets, including telephones for cellular networks or for other wireless networks" which is commodity code 8517120000 with a third country duty of 0.00% - so the missing £115 ain't import duty. What it *is* is the additional cost of doing business in Europe compared to the US. Here, the national minimum wage is £5.60 to £7.50 depending on how old you are; in the US it's $7.50, which is £5.34. That means that the people selling the phone to you are paid more, which in turn means the shop has to take a bigger cut, which in turn means Apple has to charge more 'cos heaven forfend it cuts its profit margin. Then, as has been mentioned, there's EU regulation on merchantability of goods: Apple's positioning the device as a luxury item, which means it legally has to work for six years and if it fails due to a design or manufacturing flaw at any point in that time Apple's on the hook to repair it; in the US, if it breaks after the first year - even if it's 'cos Apple screwed something up - you're SOL. Again, you think the cost of repairing 'out of warranty' items comes from Apple's bottom line? Nah: it comes from charging everyone in the EU more than in the US specifically to cover that cost. Next, take a look at the trend in the Pound Sterling since Brexit became a thing. In particular, note how it's been going very firmly downwards. This is expected to continue, which will make $999 become £750, then £760, then £770, then £780, and who knows where it'll stop? Certainly not Apple, which will be building some wiggle-room into the pricing so if the Pound drops 10% tomorrow 'cos Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson opened his big fat gob and stuck both feet in it again it doesn't have to raise the price 10% accordingly - 'cos launching a device at £999 then turning around and increasing it to £1099 the very next day is not something consumers like. Add those three together, sprinkle a little on the top for shipping to a small island like ours being more expensive than shipping to the US, then round it up so it's a figure pleasing to the eye. Voila: £999. Simple mafs, innit. However, Apple appears to be ignoring regional pricing issues, which tie back in to the national minimum wage. The US median annual wage is $30,240 as of 2015, which means a $999 iPhone X represents 3.3% of the median income; the UK median income is £21,000 a year, which makes a $999 iPhone X 4.76% of the median income - meaning a UK person has to save that much longer to afford the same item. That's not something to particularly concern Apple, though, 'cos a grand's worth of phone ain't targeted at the median income - it's a high-end item, and those with lower incomes will do what they always do and buy it through a phone contract with eight minutes, four texts, and 512KB of data for £200 a month.
As I recall phone contracts that include or heavily subsidise the cost of the phone over the period of the contract (which is the way I think the majority of people will get this phone) are substantially more generous in the UK than in the US. I think if you consider the effective cost of a phone to include service over a period of time then the UK may well come off a lot better.
Whilst I'd never pay a grand for a phone at least you're getting glass, metal and electronics for your money. Image paying more than your car for a plain white shirt.
They are still an incredibly bad deal compared to just buying a "normal" phone and using payg or a sim only contract. For example three.co.uk is currently promoting the 64GB baby hands edition iPhone 8 with 12GB data for £55 a month and £79 up front. A sim only contract with three that gives 12GB data costs £14 a month. That means over 24 month you would pay £1063 for the phone. If you buy the same phone straight from the official Apple UK website it costs £699. So getting it with contract subsidy there is a premium of £364 over just buying the same phone outright and the equivalent sim only contract. So while its true that we can get it for a lower up front cost than in the US, that doesn't mean much if the credit is so expensive.
Even if i had 600 quid to spend on the phone I a can think or rather see why I would? There is nothing groundbreaking with this phone is there?
Something seemed wrong about these (where did 1063 come from?), so I ran them again £55 * 24 + £79 = £1320 + £79 = £1399 (contract 24 months) £699 + £14*24= £1035 Difference between outright and not outright: £364 You can get on the iPhone upgrade programme (£33.56 /mo * 24 months) and you get apple care + interest free finance from apple: £37.95 * 20 + £69 (upfront payment) + 24 * 14 = £1164 (£129 over the upfront cash in hand price, but you get 2 insurance events free) I think the last option is the best if you want an iPhone, provided you don't use the upgrade option (you have to hand in your handset and it restarts the payment plan if you upgrade with them)
Cost of the sim only contract: 14 * 24 = 336 Upfront cost + contract cost: 55 * 24 + 79 = 1399 1399 - 336 = 1063 Since the contract with the phone offers zilch in the way of extras the entire 1063 can be attributed to cost of phone + cost of credit for phone. Ultimately we just used a different approach, but the end result of your math is the same as mine, £364 difference.
There is a lot of tech in that phone, I'm not an apple fan but having worked on chips to go into such phones I know the amount of effort company X puts in versus company Y to qualify 3rd party hardware going into their devices and some do a lot more due diligence than others. Cheaper phones much like cheaper everything else is cheaper for a reason, mostly comes down to the compromises that have been made to get that product to market. In addition I'll say having had some of my missus' Apple stuff fail I can't fault their replacement strategy vs my Sony/LG/Samsung stuff that's broke in the past, worth the premium for that alone if you can live with the Apple OS/ecosystem.
I had a ZTE Blade (first one) until the screen stopped responding. It was 90€ new at the time. I currently have an iPhone 5S which is actually my company phone so essentially free. I hate it though. Truth is I haven't bought a phone in about 7 years or so.
