As far as I understand this article can be shrinked to one sentence: Thats all, I suppose?
As far as I understand this article can be shrinked to one sentence:
In the US, the 16e’s savings vs. the 17 are about 25%. In Brazil, considering retail prices, that gap can exceed 50% — precisely 52.4% when comparing BRL 3,299 (16e low) to BRL 6,929 (17 low).
For the most part yes, but from my read of it I'd say the intended point is to check the local value proposition, compared to what the larger (mainly US focused) reviewers may say.
For the most part yes, but from my read of it I'd say the intended point is to check the local value proposition, compared to what the larger (mainly US focused) reviewers may say.
In part, yes. (I'm the author.) I also tried (and maybe failed) to show that the negative comments regarding the 16e are mostly due to the American scenario, and that elsewhere and/or isolated,...
In part, yes. (I'm the author.) I also tried (and maybe failed) to show that the negative comments regarding the 16e are mostly due to the American scenario, and that elsewhere and/or isolated, the 16e is a very good phone.
The prices on new iPhones is just insane. I’ve never paid so much and never will for a phone. I always buy them used and never more than 300€$. I just can’t justify paying more than that. And I...
The prices on new iPhones is just insane. I’ve never paid so much and never will for a phone. I always buy them used and never more than 300€$. I just can’t justify paying more than that. And I get a few generations old iPhone and it’s fine.
Honestly the prices on good electronics these days are insanely low. They have gone down (adjusting for inflation) while getting exponentially more powerful. At the high end the Apple storage tax...
Honestly the prices on good electronics these days are insanely low. They have gone down (adjusting for inflation) while getting exponentially more powerful. At the high end the Apple storage tax is ludicrous though.
But the value of a used phone is very good by comparison. I use a 15 Pro and can’t see any reason a phone user wouldn’t be perfectly happy with it.
The original iPhone was like $800 in 2007, which is like $1200 adjusted for inflation. They've easily come down in price over time. And it's not like you even pay full price either...carriers are...
The original iPhone was like $800 in 2007, which is like $1200 adjusted for inflation. They've easily come down in price over time. And it's not like you even pay full price either...carriers are always running trade in deals that are basically no cost to upgrade if you stay under contract for a couple of years.
They've become a lot more fast and capable during that time, too. The original iPhone had its impressive points but came with even more limits, which is part of why people balked at its price back...
They've become a lot more fast and capable during that time, too. The original iPhone had its impressive points but came with even more limits, which is part of why people balked at its price back then. These days the line that separates them from much larger computing devices is quite thin.
I remember not having multitasking. Opening an app was guaranteed to close the prior one, losing whatever state it was in unless it was persisted to disk, as you only had a few dozen megabytes of...
I remember not having multitasking. Opening an app was guaranteed to close the prior one, losing whatever state it was in unless it was persisted to disk, as you only had a few dozen megabytes of RAM to work with.
It might be good value but the price is still ludicrous in my opinion. A rolls Royce might be an excellent value car, it’s still as expensive as a house and I’d argue a house has much more utility...
It might be good value but the price is still ludicrous in my opinion.
A rolls Royce might be an excellent value car, it’s still as expensive as a house and I’d argue a house has much more utility than a rolls Royce.
I don’t mind paying more for something that’s of heavy use. If I pay for a 5% better phone, that adds up when I use it for multiple hours every day for multiple years. The amortized cost spread...
I don’t mind paying more for something that’s of heavy use. If I pay for a 5% better phone, that adds up when I use it for multiple hours every day for multiple years. The amortized cost spread over all those hours is pretty low.
For the last iPhone I got, I spent $1300 on it for storage upgrades and I don’t mind a cent of it.
I paid 200 for my 2020 iPhone a couple of years ago. It’s good enough. It’s fine. I just can’t imagine paying a month rent for a phone. I just don’t get it. You can buy almost 7 of my phones with...
I paid 200 for my 2020 iPhone a couple of years ago. It’s good enough. It’s fine. I just can’t imagine paying a month rent for a phone. I just don’t get it. You can buy almost 7 of my phones with one of yours. That 21–35 years worth of phones if you keep it 3–5 years, that’s close to a lifetime worth of phones! Not even accounting for compounding interest.
Why not? If you want to see something that’s really expensive, I just finished buying a $6000 lens. For something that’s a daily use item, improving the functionality goes a long way. You have to...
Why not? If you want to see something that’s really expensive, I just finished buying a $6000 lens.
For something that’s a daily use item, improving the functionality goes a long way. You have to multiply it by the number of hours used. Comparatively, other things that aren’t as commonly used may have a much lower price tag, but a higher cost per hour used.
For sure, to me it’s not worth paying more than a few hundred for an iPhones from several generations ago, but I don’t mind paying 100$/year for a search engine. To each their own.
For sure, to me it’s not worth paying more than a few hundred for an iPhones from several generations ago, but I don’t mind paying 100$/year for a search engine. To each their own.
That's a large difference between the 16e and 17! I saw articles about the 16e being manufactured in Brazil, which would avoid import tariffs. Perhaps the 17 isn't being manufactured in Brazil (yet)?
That's a large difference between the 16e and 17! I saw articles about the 16e being manufactured in Brazil, which would avoid import tariffs. Perhaps the 17 isn't being manufactured in Brazil (yet)?
Even here this conversation!? Brazilian taxes are lower than the most OECD countries. And if Apple can sell 16e at a competitive price, they can do the same with the 17, I guess.
Even here this conversation!? Brazilian taxes are lower than the most OECD countries. And if Apple can sell 16e at a competitive price, they can do the same with the 17, I guess.
That article is talking about tax burden as a percentage of GDP. In this case, it’s about import taxes on electronics, which are objectively very high. The latter will be a small component of the...
That article is talking about tax burden as a percentage of GDP. In this case, it’s about import taxes on electronics, which are objectively very high. The latter will be a small component of the former and the latter being high would not make the former necessarily high as a result.
As an SE user I was disappointed with the “budget” switch. I am in the niche of small phone users. I may just get a refurbished SE at some point, especially if the 16e doesn’t even have mag safe.
As an SE user I was disappointed with the “budget” switch. I am in the niche of small phone users. I may just get a refurbished SE at some point, especially if the 16e doesn’t even have mag safe.
599 for the 16E is a nice discount from the 17 if you really don't care about a 120Hz screen, multiple cameras, or naked phone magsafe. But it pales in comparison to the 399 2016 SE. I know...
599 for the 16E is a nice discount from the 17 if you really don't care about a 120Hz screen, multiple cameras, or naked phone magsafe.
But it pales in comparison to the 399 2016 SE. I know inflation might make that number unrealistic these days, but Google was also able to sell the 3a and 4a for around 349, iirc.
Maybe it's the size of these screens and batteries that's bloated the price so much? In that case, can I please please please get a 16e mini for 499? (though, lets be real, with literally no small upgrade option from my 13 mini, I'd easily pay 1499 just for something the same size)
Ehhh I mean that's more market forces doing their thing, and something something no bad product, only bad price*. I'd say Apple's failed to reasonably price their product in the rest of the world...
There are exceptions—“the iPhone of the year” models rarely see deep cuts soon after launch.
Using a local price comparison site, you can find the iPhone 16e for BRL 3,650 (~USD 660). That isn’t even the lowest: near Black Friday it hit a historical low of BRL 3,299 (~USD 596).
Ehhh I mean that's more market forces doing their thing, and something something no bad product, only bad price*. I'd say Apple's failed to reasonably price their product in the rest of the world and the price is right in exactly one country. Not ideal.
* disclaimer: exaggeration, bad power supplies can in fact burn your house down
Interesting... As an Pixel 5 user who's been refusing to upgrade because every phone is huge, I think I may get this phone. This is only two mm taller than the Pixel 5. Much heavier though but the...
Interesting... As an Pixel 5 user who's been refusing to upgrade because every phone is huge, I think I may get this phone. This is only two mm taller than the Pixel 5. Much heavier though but the rest of the phone is only slightly bigger than the Pixel 5.
Now a smidge taller again and heavier, but the 17 is worth considering too. The consensus in the Apple camp is that the 17 is the best bang-for-buck non-Pro iPhone in a long, long time.
Now a smidge taller again and heavier, but the 17 is worth considering too. The consensus in the Apple camp is that the 17 is the best bang-for-buck non-Pro iPhone in a long, long time.
Compared to your Pixel 5, the Pixel 10 is 8 mm taller, and the Galaxy S25 is only 2 mm taller: https://www.gsmchoice.com/en/sizeer/google-pixel5-vs-google-pixel-10/...
Compared to your Pixel 5, the Pixel 10 is 8 mm taller, and the Galaxy S25 is only 2 mm taller:
I was issued a Pixel 10 for work and never use it. Just find it difficult to use one handed. Though I have considered S25 and I've been on the lookout for a good deal.
I was issued a Pixel 10 for work and never use it. Just find it difficult to use one handed.
Though I have considered S25 and I've been on the lookout for a good deal.
Have you tried turning on the double tap gesture to pull down the notification panel? There's also a one-hand mode you can enable in the settings to shrink the display as needed. I agree really...
Have you tried turning on the double tap gesture to pull down the notification panel? There's also a one-hand mode you can enable in the settings to shrink the display as needed.
Why does Apple set the RRP higher in Brazil compared with the US? The article says an iPhone 17 is ~1450 USD in Brazil vs $799 in the US. Are there heavy taxes or something?
Why does Apple set the RRP higher in Brazil compared with the US? The article says an iPhone 17 is ~1450 USD in Brazil vs $799 in the US. Are there heavy taxes or something?
One thing that helped me understand the US phone market a bit more, or at least how tech reviewers based in the US evaluate it (besides knowing that like 60% of users have an iPhone and thus tend...
One thing that helped me understand the US phone market a bit more, or at least how tech reviewers based in the US evaluate it (besides knowing that like 60% of users have an iPhone and thus tend to just compare with iPhones), is that a very big chunk of people still get phones via contract with their carrier.
This was something I remember happening here like 15 years ago but now nobody does this (because you're always paying more in the end), so it was hard to wrap my head around at first, but in the US paying for installments via carrier contract seems to be much more normalized.
So the price of a phone has to be compared not just by its base value, but also as its value in installment payments. Suddenly you're not comparing 700 USD with 500 USD, you're comparing like 20 a month vs 25 a month (I didn't do the math, just pulled random numbers), which is certainly a more appealing proposition if you're used to and/or prefer that type of payment model.
Trade-ins are also much more common in the US from what I hear. Or at least trade-ins with big value. Where I live I can trade-in my phone too but the discount is usually so small that it's almost meaningless. Trade-in offers in the US can get you a top-of-the-line phone for very little.
Everything else I agree with, though. Most US tech reviewers don't really have a frame of reference for other countries and how price wars go on in other places. But then again, I never assume they're really trying to sell a phone to a non-US audience, so I always keep in the back of my mind that I'm not the primary audience. It's the same attitude I have with like the Oscars. Just have to accept that the US, even if it's facing a global audience, will always be US-centric.
Brazil in particular is also a very unique case due to extremely high tariffs on foreign tech imports. I don't think most assume that it could cost you 60% more to buy a phone in another country because of taxes. 10% or 20% maybe, but 60%? That's a big markup.
In most other places the iPhones follow a similar price scheme to the US. Prices in Europe are pretty close to the US for example, with only the different VAT making the biggest difference. Of course, the same price in the US being applied to countries with lower purchasing power makes those phones more expensive by default, but the raw value is usually around the same.
Funnily enough, US customers got a taste of that same feeling, maybe for the first time, with the Fairphone, which cost almost double there compared to Europe. But of course something like the Fairphone won't really make a splash compared to an iPhone.
I’m an American and I don’t get why so many people get the carrier phones either. They give you a deliberately gimped phone - it’s better with iPhone because they don’t really allow much if any...
I’m an American and I don’t get why so many people get the carrier phones either. They give you a deliberately gimped phone - it’s better with iPhone because they don’t really allow much if any bloat and adware to be installed on the phone but even then it’s still locked to the carrier so you can’t switch. They often put a lock that prevent you from using features like mobile hotspot, a feature that has been standard on smartphones practically since inception. Sometimes they give you the phone for “free”, but when I last looked that up it forced you on the most expensive plan which costs about the same as I pay for cell service for the entire year. But hey, those plans give you “free” Netflix and Hulu. Except they are actually the lowest quality versions that you have to subject yourself to advertising in order to watch.
Granted, I do know that the issue with carrier meddling in firmware has gotten better over time. And I know the value is better if you are paying for a whole family - 4 iPhones for $280 a month doesn’t sound that bad, really - but the only reason why single people are getting it must be that they don’t realize what bad value you are getting, I think.
Paying for it directly with the contract is pretty rare these days. It use to be common, but these days they just offer 1 year or 2 year financing with no interest + trade in. The difference is...
Paying for it directly with the contract is pretty rare these days. It use to be common, but these days they just offer 1 year or 2 year financing with no interest + trade in.
The difference is that it’s no longer baked into the phone bill, but is a separate financing agreement. You do own the phone after financing, and can unlock it from being locked to a cellular network after paying it off.
As far as I understand this article can be shrinked to one sentence:
Thats all, I suppose?
For the most part yes, but from my read of it I'd say the intended point is to check the local value proposition, compared to what the larger (mainly US focused) reviewers may say.
In part, yes. (I'm the author.) I also tried (and maybe failed) to show that the negative comments regarding the 16e are mostly due to the American scenario, and that elsewhere and/or isolated, the 16e is a very good phone.
The prices on new iPhones is just insane. I’ve never paid so much and never will for a phone. I always buy them used and never more than 300€$. I just can’t justify paying more than that. And I get a few generations old iPhone and it’s fine.
Honestly the prices on good electronics these days are insanely low. They have gone down (adjusting for inflation) while getting exponentially more powerful. At the high end the Apple storage tax is ludicrous though.
But the value of a used phone is very good by comparison. I use a 15 Pro and can’t see any reason a phone user wouldn’t be perfectly happy with it.
The original iPhone was like $800 in 2007, which is like $1200 adjusted for inflation. They've easily come down in price over time. And it's not like you even pay full price either...carriers are always running trade in deals that are basically no cost to upgrade if you stay under contract for a couple of years.
They've become a lot more fast and capable during that time, too. The original iPhone had its impressive points but came with even more limits, which is part of why people balked at its price back then. These days the line that separates them from much larger computing devices is quite thin.
I remember not having multitasking. Opening an app was guaranteed to close the prior one, losing whatever state it was in unless it was persisted to disk, as you only had a few dozen megabytes of RAM to work with.
It might be good value but the price is still ludicrous in my opinion.
A rolls Royce might be an excellent value car, it’s still as expensive as a house and I’d argue a house has much more utility than a rolls Royce.
I don’t mind paying more for something that’s of heavy use. If I pay for a 5% better phone, that adds up when I use it for multiple hours every day for multiple years. The amortized cost spread over all those hours is pretty low.
For the last iPhone I got, I spent $1300 on it for storage upgrades and I don’t mind a cent of it.
I paid 200 for my 2020 iPhone a couple of years ago. It’s good enough. It’s fine. I just can’t imagine paying a month rent for a phone. I just don’t get it. You can buy almost 7 of my phones with one of yours. That 21–35 years worth of phones if you keep it 3–5 years, that’s close to a lifetime worth of phones! Not even accounting for compounding interest.
Why not? If you want to see something that’s really expensive, I just finished buying a $6000 lens.
For something that’s a daily use item, improving the functionality goes a long way. You have to multiply it by the number of hours used. Comparatively, other things that aren’t as commonly used may have a much lower price tag, but a higher cost per hour used.
For sure, to me it’s not worth paying more than a few hundred for an iPhones from several generations ago, but I don’t mind paying 100$/year for a search engine. To each their own.
That's a large difference between the 16e and 17! I saw articles about the 16e being manufactured in Brazil, which would avoid import tariffs. Perhaps the 17 isn't being manufactured in Brazil (yet)?
Brazil's massive tariffs are part of why their economy hasn't grown much, especially compared to peers with more trade.
Even here this conversation!? Brazilian taxes are lower than the most OECD countries. And if Apple can sell 16e at a competitive price, they can do the same with the 17, I guess.
That article is talking about tax burden as a percentage of GDP. In this case, it’s about import taxes on electronics, which are objectively very high. The latter will be a small component of the former and the latter being high would not make the former necessarily high as a result.
That's a good guess! It probably explains the gap between these two phones. I hope Apple start manufacturing the 17 here as well.
As an SE user I was disappointed with the “budget” switch. I am in the niche of small phone users. I may just get a refurbished SE at some point, especially if the 16e doesn’t even have mag safe.
You can get a mag safe case for it.
Not the same if you don't use cases. (My case and, I imagine, @Caelum's too.)
599 for the 16E is a nice discount from the 17 if you really don't care about a 120Hz screen, multiple cameras, or naked phone magsafe.
But it pales in comparison to the 399 2016 SE. I know inflation might make that number unrealistic these days, but Google was also able to sell the 3a and 4a for around 349, iirc.
Maybe it's the size of these screens and batteries that's bloated the price so much? In that case, can I please please please get a 16e mini for 499? (though, lets be real, with literally no small upgrade option from my 13 mini, I'd easily pay 1499 just for something the same size)
Even to the USD 429 iPhone SE (2022).
Ehhh I mean that's more market forces doing their thing, and something something no bad product, only bad price*. I'd say Apple's failed to reasonably price their product in the rest of the world and the price is right in exactly one country. Not ideal.
* disclaimer: exaggeration, bad power supplies can in fact burn your house down
Arguably, there probably is a "correct" price for a plausibly deniable house fire generator...
Interesting... As an Pixel 5 user who's been refusing to upgrade because every phone is huge, I think I may get this phone. This is only two mm taller than the Pixel 5. Much heavier though but the rest of the phone is only slightly bigger than the Pixel 5.
Now a smidge taller again and heavier, but the 17 is worth considering too. The consensus in the Apple camp is that the 17 is the best bang-for-buck non-Pro iPhone in a long, long time.
Compared to your Pixel 5, the Pixel 10 is 8 mm taller, and the Galaxy S25 is only 2 mm taller:
They're both a bit heavier which I think is because of the bigger battery and cameras?
I was issued a Pixel 10 for work and never use it. Just find it difficult to use one handed.
Though I have considered S25 and I've been on the lookout for a good deal.
Have you tried turning on the double tap gesture to pull down the notification panel? There's also a one-hand mode you can enable in the settings to shrink the display as needed.
I agree really tall phones are a pain.
Why does Apple set the RRP higher in Brazil compared with the US? The article says an iPhone 17 is ~1450 USD in Brazil vs $799 in the US. Are there heavy taxes or something?
When you add up all the various taxes it’s ~60% just on custom duties.
Yeap. Also, retail pricing in Brazil already contains all the taxes. In the US, if I'm not mistaken, they are added on checkout, right?
One thing that helped me understand the US phone market a bit more, or at least how tech reviewers based in the US evaluate it (besides knowing that like 60% of users have an iPhone and thus tend to just compare with iPhones), is that a very big chunk of people still get phones via contract with their carrier.
This was something I remember happening here like 15 years ago but now nobody does this (because you're always paying more in the end), so it was hard to wrap my head around at first, but in the US paying for installments via carrier contract seems to be much more normalized.
So the price of a phone has to be compared not just by its base value, but also as its value in installment payments. Suddenly you're not comparing 700 USD with 500 USD, you're comparing like 20 a month vs 25 a month (I didn't do the math, just pulled random numbers), which is certainly a more appealing proposition if you're used to and/or prefer that type of payment model.
Trade-ins are also much more common in the US from what I hear. Or at least trade-ins with big value. Where I live I can trade-in my phone too but the discount is usually so small that it's almost meaningless. Trade-in offers in the US can get you a top-of-the-line phone for very little.
Everything else I agree with, though. Most US tech reviewers don't really have a frame of reference for other countries and how price wars go on in other places. But then again, I never assume they're really trying to sell a phone to a non-US audience, so I always keep in the back of my mind that I'm not the primary audience. It's the same attitude I have with like the Oscars. Just have to accept that the US, even if it's facing a global audience, will always be US-centric.
Brazil in particular is also a very unique case due to extremely high tariffs on foreign tech imports. I don't think most assume that it could cost you 60% more to buy a phone in another country because of taxes. 10% or 20% maybe, but 60%? That's a big markup.
In most other places the iPhones follow a similar price scheme to the US. Prices in Europe are pretty close to the US for example, with only the different VAT making the biggest difference. Of course, the same price in the US being applied to countries with lower purchasing power makes those phones more expensive by default, but the raw value is usually around the same.
Funnily enough, US customers got a taste of that same feeling, maybe for the first time, with the Fairphone, which cost almost double there compared to Europe. But of course something like the Fairphone won't really make a splash compared to an iPhone.
I’m an American and I don’t get why so many people get the carrier phones either. They give you a deliberately gimped phone - it’s better with iPhone because they don’t really allow much if any bloat and adware to be installed on the phone but even then it’s still locked to the carrier so you can’t switch. They often put a lock that prevent you from using features like mobile hotspot, a feature that has been standard on smartphones practically since inception. Sometimes they give you the phone for “free”, but when I last looked that up it forced you on the most expensive plan which costs about the same as I pay for cell service for the entire year. But hey, those plans give you “free” Netflix and Hulu. Except they are actually the lowest quality versions that you have to subject yourself to advertising in order to watch.
Granted, I do know that the issue with carrier meddling in firmware has gotten better over time. And I know the value is better if you are paying for a whole family - 4 iPhones for $280 a month doesn’t sound that bad, really - but the only reason why single people are getting it must be that they don’t realize what bad value you are getting, I think.
Paying for it directly with the contract is pretty rare these days. It use to be common, but these days they just offer 1 year or 2 year financing with no interest + trade in.
The difference is that it’s no longer baked into the phone bill, but is a separate financing agreement. You do own the phone after financing, and can unlock it from being locked to a cellular network after paying it off.