Re:Most people don't care about quality
by MichaelZuo on Sunday January 05, 2025 @06:25PM
(#42605957)
“No evidence”… according to who?
Based on what arguments that such evidence does not exist?
Based on what arguments that such evidence does not exist?
There is no evidence of that. If anything more vertically integrated devices (e.g. iPhone, Samsung flagships) cost more, because a vertically integrated market increases barriers to entry and impairs competition.
A Samsung phone might very well have a Samsung CPU with Samsung RAM and Samsung flash made in Samsung fabs with a Samsung battery and a Samsung screen. Galaxy S24 Ultra, ~$1000.
Meanwhile, the $110 phone was the Moto G Play. That's a Qualcomm CPU with Samsung RAM, a "Motorola"-branded battery which is probably Sanyo or Panasonic, and a third party screen and flash because Motorola doesn't make those either. It's $110 because it's full of fungible commodity parts.
The issue is, some of them -- especially that CPU -- are poorly documented and full of tightly integrated but closed source firmware/drivers. Which has nothing to do with the manufacturing cost of the hardware. A fully-documented open-source RISC-V CPU is not going to cost more.