On Wed, 20 Mar 2019 12:56:33 -0700, sms wrote:

All the phone manufacturers are able to buy the same cameras and lenses
for their flagship phones. And the same screens and modems for that
matter. So it's not surprising how close these phones are.

Hi Steve,
I agree with you that, if they don't make their own hardware, then they all
have access to essentially the same hardware.

Today I saw that the 512GB Samsung Note 9 is $749.99 at B&H

Electronics generally follows the rule of better, faster, & cheaper.
o Of course, Apple tries, with marketing, to reverse that trend.

An iPhone Xs Max 512GB with a fast charger, wireless charging
pad, and USB-C to Lightning cable is $1,536.95 online (before tax).

Personally, I think Apple will fail to successfully maintain the current
stratospheric prices, particularly when the general public realizes the
mediocre performance of the Apple hardware (e.g., 5G) comes at an
astronomical price point.

I know that some people correctly claim that you could buy a very good
compact camera for $750 (i.e. the Lumix TZ200) plus a $200 phone, and
end up with much better quality photos, but for a lot of people a phone
with a high-end camera is good enough and less hassle when traveling.

I don't know if _any_ phone, what with that puny lens, could even approach
the versatility & quality of a similarly priced SLR. Can they?

To forestall nospam's incessantly idiotic worthless "yes", he'd have to
give examples in order to be believed (nospam is allergic to actual facts).

For phones officially sold in the U.S. and that will work on the top
tier carriers and that have a MicroSD card slot and a headphone jack.

Personally, the _lack_ of expansion memory & headphone jacks is a killer
loss of basic functionality found in _all_ iPhones, unfortunately.

Worse, the loss of removable batteries is happening even on Android.
o Luckily, Android phones generally have better batteries than iPhones
(in terms of the fact most current iPhone batteries are throttle "in about
a year").