I'm with you on the sticker shock. But, playing devil's advocate here, I bet you use your phone a lot more than your laptop. So why shouldn't it be of higher quality?

Valid question, with the answer being that the higher quality does not enable me to do anything more than what I want to do.

Whereas with the laptop, spending more does. Up to a point anyway, but that cut-off sits higher than with phones.

The probability of losing or getting my phone stolen must be 20x that of my laptop. That alone justifies spending 1/4 on the phone purchase.

You would lose that bet. I use a real computer (desktop or laptop) far more than I use my phone.

It's crazy. The main apps we use haven't really changed meaningfully in years, it's still just some UI over some CRUD apps, along with maps and a video player. Throw in some web browsing too I guess, which is also mostly just looking at text and images.

Phone hardware from the past decade can handle this content no problem and they cost in the low hundreds of dollars. The only reason you would need faster hardware is for gaming, but if you're serious about gaming, I'm not sure why you're on a phone to begin with.

Yea if you don't mind being the product then just use a normal android instead of paying twice to avoid it