My first smartphone, as a highschooler, was $40 (circle 2014). My first "luxury" phone was a $150 Android.

A $430 price tag IS a lot.

In the US?? It was VERY rare to find a phone that cheap in 2014. I had a Nexus 5 in 2014 and it went for $350 ($437 in 2022 dollars). And that was considered a really good deal/budget phone.

Pixel 6a was on sale a couple weeks ago for $350.

I haven't ever paid more than $500 for a phone, and even that much upset me!

Nexus was a mid/high-end model (google branded), budget android phones are usually from chinese manufacturers like ZTE.

In the US!

I got an 'LG Optimus' phone in 2015 for $125 (after tip and tax, down from the $150 I had in my memory.) I don't have the 2013 receipt for the $40 phone though, that might have been through a WalMart contract.

A new 'Moto G Power' can be had for $150 right now (down from $250) and a new Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro can be had for $220. You can find sub-$50 phones too, especially in the used market.

>tip

What? I want to know more about the circumstances that led to you paying a tip while buying a cellphone. What country was this? What state/province? What store?

(I see that your comment mentions the US and Wal-Mart, but I think both of those are about the $40 purchase and I'm curious about the $125 purchase.)

Haha woops, force of habit! I just meant "tax", not "tip and tax".

I did not realize I was in the habit of saying "tip and tax" to refer to extra fees.

And to top it off the $430 was for a backup phone.

Moto G line has models that are $169 new. You can get older used models for $60 and a line of service for $20 a month. I think people vastly overestimate how much money average people actually spend.