We are the ones making the iPhone and Pixel more expensive

This year has seen a big upgrade in quality from most phone companies: Samsung’s new

Galaxy Note doesn’t explode, Apple’s iPhone has a radical redesign, the OnePlus 5 is lovely, and LG’s V30 is shaping up to be a strong contender. If you love technology, you love it for precisely this inexorable march toward better, faster, and prettier devices. But one thing that’s different about the best smartphones of 2017 is that the price of admission is going up. The Huawei P9 cost £449 in the UK in 2016, but this year’s P10 starts at £569. You get more, but you pay more as well. (+26%) The OnePlus 3 was $399 in 2016, but the 2017 OnePlus 5’s starting price is $479. (+20%) The Galaxy Note 7 was $849 in 2016, but now the Galaxy Note 8 costs $930 at a minimum. (+10%) The iPhone 7 Plus of 2016 ranged in price from $769 to $969, and Apple has topped it this year with the $999 iPhone X. (+30% starting price) The Google Pixel XL of 2016 was $769 or $869, depending on storage, and this week’s leaks suggest that the 2017 edition will be dearer with $849 and $949 price points. (+10%) With taxes factored in, we can say with surety that the $1,000 smartphone is among us — and it’s not going away anytime soon, either. That’s the reality of advanced mobile technology now. Even incremental change has become slow and expensive, so if we all continue to insist on seeing improvements on a yearly cadence, we should accept that some of the increased cost will trickle down to us. There’s no industry-wide conspiracy to hike up prices without justification, even though they are definitely moving up in a harmonized, seemingly coordinated fashion. We’re just looking at a very mature market, one where the major contenders are rolling out their eighth generation of devices.                                                                                                https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/20/16338022/iphone-x-google-pixel-2-price-change