{"id":1500,"date":"2025-07-11T12:27:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T12:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/1500\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T12:27:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T12:27:03","slug":"why-buy-flagship-phones-if-budget-phones-are-just-as-good-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/1500\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Buy Flagship Phones if ‘Budget’ Phones Are Just as Good Now?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The concept of a budget-friendly phone lost its meaning this week when Samsung announced its new Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE<\/a> costs an eye-watering $900. It’s similar in looks and ability to its premium-model sister phone, and it even has the same cameras.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Apple released its more budget-friendly iPhone 16E<\/a>, which also got jeers for an higher-than-expected price of $600. It carries the same processor as the main iPhone 16, but lacks one rear camera.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The cost of phones is expected to continue to rise, leaving the more affordable models stuck filling an awkward gap for anyone who’s looking to buy a new phone. These budget models cost more than before but they can also do more than ever, with similar processors to their flagship counterparts.<\/p>\n

So for this week’s episode of One More Thing, which you can watch embedded above, I’m talking about how budget tech is becoming the new normal — and why it’s time to take this category seriously as the only tech worth your money now for upgrades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Phone costs will continue to rise, and it might not even be related to the latest tariff threats<\/a>. Apple is reportedly planning to raise iPhone prices regardless of tariffs, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal<\/a>. Tech tariff anxiety is still high, with a CNET survey finding that 64% of consumers are rushing to buy tech<\/a> to avoid price spikes and shortages.<\/p>\n

That means tech companies are more incentivized to make lower entry prices for a product, and that means cutting some features to cut costs. And this trend goes beyond phones. Apple is rumored to be making a cheaper MacBook<\/a> by giving it an iPhone chip.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And why not? With how good these processors are, you might not even notice the difference for basic tasks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you’re looking for more\u00a0One More Thing<\/a>, subscribe to our YouTube page to catch Bridget Carey breaking down the latest Apple news and issues every Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The concept of a budget-friendly phone lost its meaning this week when Samsung announced its new Galaxy Z…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[165,74],"class_list":["post-1500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}