[Petrochemicals (OP)]

The 3G network is being switched off in the coming few years and any mobile you buy now will need to be at least a 4G type. Having looked at the phones on the market at present they all look largely the same, massive screen, camera on the back. There are a few exeptions such as the folding phones, but generally the same.

 The prices though are extrodinarily different. I can buy a phone for 70 pounds that pretty much looks the same as one that costs 1000+.  Whilst I understand some have a better camera or the folding phones are new and fancy, what precisely does the extra money buy you?

[alancalverd]

Peer status. Like the Motorola Brick and the Blackberry of years gone by.

Dunno why they call them phones nowadays - folk use them for just about everything except talking to humans.   

[paul cotter]

If there were not customers willing to buy the latest fad, there would not be those outrageously expensive models.

[Bored chemist]

A 'phone is not expansive; the latest 'phone is expensive.
Much the same with a lot of other things.

[alancalverd]

  A 'phone is not expansive

 But

the folding phones are new and fancy

So some of them are "expansive"! But why?

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Appears im probably asking the wrong group of people, i shall source myself some children.

[paul cotter]

I am at a loss to understand your comment, Petro. The answers given cover the subject quite well, imho. There is a cohort of people with more money than sense who are quite willing to purchase vanity and the manufacturers know this and price their products accordingly. I am fairly sure that these expensive models are only marginally more expensive to manufacture. A similar phenomenon can be found with watches where absolutely astronomic prices can apply to certain brands, regardless of their mechanism and precious metal content.

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

I think youbare half right paul, the folding phones are obviously new technology and i can see how it can be justified, remeber the price of flatscreen tvs when first out. The flat phones do not seem to do much more than each other, I guess because the gimicks are getting old, the budget phones seem to have pretty much caught up with the premium phones. I remember when Apple where accused of making peacemeal improvements to allow for further new models in future.

Worst thing about all of this technology is that it is all rubbish.

[alancalverd]

Please explain the justification for a folding phone! I remember compact "flip" phones with proper push buttons, but putting a crease in a touch screen simply makes a defective product (touch screens are prone to error and waste time - car manufacturers are now getting rid of them, and entering data on a touch screen in a small plane is positively dangerous) liable to failure.

And why is it impossible for anyone to write a screenplay nowadays without invoking mobile phones? Same old tedious cliches: "I've got to take this call"  "Get the lab to unlock his phone" "Message from unknown caller", destroy the SIM, no battery.....

[Petrochemicals (OP)]

Buttons Alan, I really miss buttons, wonderful nearly infallible buttons.