What mobile you got?

[Bustedwing]

I don't even own a cell phone ! I figure if people want to call me they can call me at home. Here's what kills me though, my brother in law has every Beatles song released in North America on his smart phone. I have a stack of Beatles albums about a foot high that I still listen to on a turntable. Ok so call me a dinosaur !

 

[The Basket]

Oh yeah. In the UK we call it a mobile. Lost in translation.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

ZTE cheapie. For $28 it has more usable features than my last year's $150 Samsung, and what's more it works at my new place and the Sam didn't. Cheap is good!
Cheers,
Wes

 

[The Basket]

It will be interesting to see where the Chinese will be at with mobiles in a few years time.
Manufacturers like OnePlus have been able to build a loyal fan base and high end phones for less money than Apple or Samsung.. And OnePlus were unheard of 5 years ago. How Apple can sell £1,000 phones when competition is strong and get away with it is greater mystery than the pyramids. I'm sure that won't continue for ever.

 

[rochie]

Have a Moto G3, quite like it but has small built in storage so after 2years no room for updates.

Replacing it next month !

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Why do you think Apple is the richest company in the world? It sure doesn't cost anywhere near what they charge to produce, advertise, and market an iPhone! There's a HUGE profit in there too. They pioneered the genre with a stylish capable product that built on their mystique of classy innovation, and now they're riding the wave at it's crest. The high price just adds to the "swank appeal" that sold Accutrons and Breutlings before Apple came along (and, of course, adds to the the bottom line).
My $28 ZTE works for me and has 16G of RAM and a better receiver/transmitter/antenna than half the pricey phones out there. PRC scores again!
Cheers,
Wes

 

[The Basket]

My partner had one of the first iPhones back in the day and I was certainly impressed. It was fantastic and years ahead of the competition.
But how you can get away with selling a product at top dollar and them queuing up with open wallets is the perfect business model. Kudos to Apple for sticking it to there own customer.
Which ZTE model is it? $28 certainly has my attention and I wonder if that model is available in the UK and how much it would be here.

 

[gumbyk]

Why do you think Apple is the richest company in the world? It sure doesn't cost anywhere near what they charge to produce, advertise, and market an iPhone! There's a HUGE profit in there too. They pioneered the genre with a stylish capable product that built on their mystique of classy innovation, and now they're riding the wave at it's crest. The high price just adds to the "swank appeal" that sold Accutrons and Breutlings before they came along (and, of course, adds to the the bottom line).
My $28 ZTE works for me and has 16G of RAM and a better receiver/transmitter/antenna than half the pricey phones out there. PRC scores again!
Cheers,
Wes

And none of that margin is there for the retailers - typically less than 5% margin for them on phones, etc.
Apple is a marketing company first, a manufacturer second, and an innovator third.

There are plenty of Chinese phones that are as good, if not better than Apple or Samsung. Huawei are one of the best that come to mine. However, there are a couple of features that I've upgraded to in my last phone that I don't want to be going backwards from (USB C, wireless charging) so it looks like Samsung or Nokia for me.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Which ZTE model is it? $28 certainly has my attention

ZTE Z899VL Majesty Pro Plus, A model for the North American market and sold through Walmart and TracPhone. Never seen it sold anywhere else.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[The Basket]

Wow.
So that's £20 for the Majesty. The specs are excellent for £20!!!! Far better than I would have expected and it actually seems a half decent phone.
The cheapest ZTE phone I can get is Blade A110 which is £60 or $84 so $28 is cheap. Also the Blade A110 has much worse specs for more money! For £20 I can only find basic dumb phone so your phone is certainly a bargain. Although ZTE is the favourite kick ball for your government as they want to ban ZTE products been used!

 

[ARTESH]

Asus Zenfon 2 !!!

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Wow.
So that's £20 for the Majesty. The specs are excellent for £20!!!! Far better than I would have expected and it actually seems a half decent phone.
The cheapest ZTE phone I can get is Blade A110 which is £60 or $84 so $28 is cheap. Also the Blade A110 has much worse specs for more money! For £20 I can only find basic dumb phone so your phone is certainly a bargain. Although ZTE is the favourite kick ball for your government as they want to ban ZTE products been used!

Unfortunately, this Z899VL uses old school CDMA technology; I don't think it knows how to talk GSM, so don't think it will work outside North America. If your market was the size of ours, and if you had the equivalent of Walmart in every city, town, and podunk crossroads, ZTE would probably market a GSM version over there.
As for our infamous Twitler, the notorious nit twit, he doesn't dare declare military war on PRC (though I think he'd like to), so he's settling for a trade war. If he thinks he can revive American industry by pricing out cheap foreign technology, he's in Dreamland!
Cheers,
Wes

 

[The Basket]

ZTE and Huawei are in trouble because it's believed they have spyware which sends the porn choices of USA Government officials directly to Peking.

I have no idea if this is true.

Since virtually all modern smartphones are made in China then it's a bit late to be concerned if they are all reporting to Peking.

Different phones for different markets with different prices. How ZTE can make a relatively good phone for that price is a mystery to me but if that phone was available on the UK market at £20 unlocked then by jiminy that would fly off the shelves. Absolutely bargain for that. I would certainly try it out and use one because at that price I've seen more expensive cases!

 

[fubar57]

The cost to make a $1000ish iPhoneX is under $400
Here's how much it reportedly costs to build the iPhone X

 

[gumbyk]

ZTE and Huawei are in trouble because it's believed they have spyware which sends the porn choices of USA Government officials directly to Peking.

I have no idea if this is true.

Since virtually all modern smartphones are made in China then it's a bit late to be concerned if they are all reporting to Peking.

Where TF is Peking?

Apple doesn't build iPhones in the United States, in other words, because there is no longer an ecosystem here to support that manufacturing. There's no supply chain, there aren't enough super-low-cost workers, and there are not enough mid-level engineers. And many Americans looking for work are still hoping for a return to jobs, salaries, and lifestyles that have simply disappeared.

from a 2012 article: This Article Explains Why Apple Makes iPhones In China And Why The US Is Screwed

 

[The Basket]

Yep. Third world sweatshops so we can buy cheap junk.
And they say slavery was abolished.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Yep. Third world sweatshops so we can buy cheap junk.
And they say slavery was abolished.

We've been there, done that, we called it "the industrial revolution": Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, US in the 19th and 20th. Then we got prosperous and forgot what it was like to be hungry and hardscrabble.
"Our kids will have a better life. They'll never have to experience what we're going through!"
Right! And they'll never appreciate or understand what you went through before their time.
"Whatever has happened since my first awareness is current events; all else is ANCIENT HISTORY and irrelevant!"
Cheers,
Wes

 

[XBe02Drvr]

We've been there, done that, we called it "the industrial revolution": Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, US in the 19th and 20th.

18th CENTURY: hardscrabble American gunmakers aspired to the techniques of fine European gunsmiths such as Britain's Joe Manton.
19th CENTURY: American gun manufacturers taught British armories how to engineer the precision machine tools to make true assembly line manufacture of military rifles possible. "Enfield's grandpappy grew up in Windsor, Vermont."
20th CENTURY: American and British universities trained exchange students from the third world in all the latest technologies, thus "sowing the fields with dragon's teeth".
We're "hoist on our own petar..oops..prosperity".
Cheers,
Wes

 

[The Basket]

Norinco is a case in point.
Chinese guns are banned in USA.
Many reasons but Norinco could easily flood the market with cheap stuff. And the American gun industry could be washed away.

Empires fall because they get fat and lazy and forget what made them empires in the first place.

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Norinco is a case in point.
Chinese guns are banned in USA.

WHO SAYS??
90% of the guns I see in the stores today are ASSEMBLED in the US (in plants owned by respected American companies, but run by Chinese contactors), from parts FABRICATED entirely in China. So you can buy a Winchester or a Remington or a Colt and feel like you're being a good Doobie because you "Buy American".
Behold, the Trojan Horse is among us!
Cheers,
Wes
PS: I just bought a Turkish shotgun, which makes no bones about being a foreign import. Nice gun. Has all the earmarks of a quality product.