No, the Samsung Galaxy Note7 doesn't 'need' to be cheaper than iPhone
Samsung launched its latest flagship phone, the Galaxy Note7, this week and I think it's the best smartphone on the planet right now. Yes, it's even better than the iPhone 6S Plus.
The phone is beyond elegant (especially in Black Onyx) and insanely powerful, brandishes a beautiful 5.7-inch display, has the best smartphone cameras, boasts super-long battery life, is water-resistant, includes wireless charging, comes with expandable storage, includes a precise stylus and packs an iris scanner.
What's not to like?
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As expected, the usual fanboys came out in droves on the defense. These are the main reasons I'm hearing why people think the Note7 isn't worth it:
It runs Android.
Android is skinned with Samsung's TouchWiz.
It runs Android.
It's expensive at $850.
It runs Android.
It's too damn expensive.
Why is it so friggin' pricey?
Newsflash: Like I said in my review, the Note7 costs the same as an iPhone 6S Plus with 64GB of storage.
Sure, you could argue that the iPhone 6S Plus starts at $750, but who the heck is going to buy a 16GB iPhone 6S Plus? Absolutely nobody should buy a 16GB iPhone. Nobody. If you can afford an iPhone, you can spend a little more and get a storage capacity that'll actually have enough room to store more than your contacts.
So the "the Note7 costs too much!" point is moot.
Then there are the people who somehow think any premium phone not made by Apple should cost less than an iPhone.
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On what planet do these people live on? Why should an Android phone be cheaper?
Because the iPhone launched first? Because Android is an open platform and anyone can take it and bend it to their liking so it should be sold for less? Because Android is somehow inferior to iOS?
GTFO.
iOS may have been more polished and ahead of Android when the original T-Mobile G1 aka "Dream" launched in 2008 to take on the iPhone and the few years after were still very rough, but Android is now a mature platform with a larger global install base than iPhone.
The gap between iOS and Android has closed.
The gap between iOS and Android has closed. With each new version of iOS and Android, we see Apple and Google borrowing features from each others' operating systems.
Anyone who thinks iOS is vastly superior to Android in terms of feature parity (security is a different question) needs to get their head out of their ass.
Though I'm a longtime iPhone user, I've tested enough Android phones across the entire spectrum of premium, midrange and budget to know what's good and what's crap.
At the very top you've got Samsung and Nexus and sometimes an LG phone. In the middle is Sony, HTC O,nePlus and Motorola. And at the bottom you've got cheap phones like the Moto G series, Blu and a whole lot of other brands I can't even recall right now. Even so, the midrange and budget continue to get better with phones from ZTE and Alcatel.
There's just no reason for this elitist mentality that Samsung's flagship phones, which are designed to be state of the art to competitively give the iPhone a run for its money, should cost less than iPhones.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong if you think that.
Like Apple, Samsung spends a tremendous amount of money on research and development on its flagship phones.
It costs money to create breakthrough innovations like curved glass edges and Super AMOLED displays and DSLR-speed autofocusing for the cameras and squeeze fast charging and wireless charging and expandable storage and water-resistance into a frame that looks and feels great.
These premium cutting-edge features deserve to command a premium price and need to command a premium device.
Android may be open, but the engineers that design the software, create new apps and patch security vulnerabilities need to be paid, too. Android isn't really free when you consider the cost to maintain the platform.
It's simple business economics.
Quality isn't free
The problem is that people are so used to getting free shit and subsidized pricing (which, by the way, is actually more expensive over time than paying full price up front) that they've lost all sense of value for products.
If you want a cheaper phone, go buy a cheaper phone. There are tons of cheaper Android phones. Heck, Samsung makes a boatload of them. They're cheaper than iPhones and some of them do have a few (but not all) of the high-end features from its best phones. Or buy last year's Samsung flagship phones, which now cost a few hundred bucks less.
That's the beauty of Android. You have options. Lots and lots of options.
But expecting Samsung's new top-of-the-line -- its very best phones -- to cost less than an iPhone just because it's an Android phone?
Grow up. Learn the value of a dollar and learn the value of quality and high-end design. The Note7 isn't for everyone and neither is the iPhone. You pick the phone that fits your budget.
The Note7 and iPhone 6S Plus fall into a class tier -- the premium luxury class -- and Samsung rightfully charges a competitive price for a phone that crushes the iPhone 6S Plus on every level.
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Raymond Wong is Mashable's Senior Tech Correspondent. He reviews gadgets and tech toys and analyzes the tech industry. Raymond's also a bit of a camera geek, gamer, and fine chocolate lover. Before arriving at Mashable, he was the Deputy Editor of NBC Universal's tech publication DVICE. His writing has appeared on G4TV, BGR, Yahoo and Ubergizmo, to name a few. You can follow Raymond on Twitter @raywongy or Instagram @sourlemons.
