Rant: Why do midrange smartphones exist?

Nokia and Samsung are famous for having portfolios that consist of 30+ devices. When Apple entered the smartphone game back in 2007, they had just one phone. Before the first iPhone even hit the market, analysts started speculating that Apple would soon offer a cheaper model to attract a wider user base; five years later and that still hasn’t happened. Instead, Apple has simply chosen to sell last year’s iPhone, and the iPhone from two years ago, to people who can’t afford their latest and greatest Jesus Phone.

This has got me thinking, why do midrange phones exist? When companies want to make a new product, they have to jump through multiple hoops. First, they need to design the thing. Second, they need to setup a factory to actually make the phone. Third, they need to make software for the phone in question. Fourth, they need to create a marketing campaign for the new product. And finally fifth, they need to convince operators and retailers to stock said phone. When Samsung, HTC, Nokia, whoever, each release 10+ smartphones a year, that’s a hell of a lot of hoop jumping.

Now look at Apple. They work their ass off to make one product every 12 months. When that phone turns a year old, they don’t stop making it, instead they take advantage of the factories they’ve already setup to keep on manufacturing what can best be described as “the flagship from last year”. They also leverage the marketing campaign that’s been running for the past 12 months to keep on selling a product that to most folks is still considered a great device. It’s risky, I’m not denying that, but look at where it’s taken them.

The Samsung Galaxy S III will ship later this month and it’s going to cost 500 British pounds ($795) in the UK, at least according to Amazon. Notice how Samsung didn’t announce any cheaper devices at their event in London two weeks ago? Now why is that? Because the Galaxy S II, which is still an amazing smartphone, and it even runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, can be had for 350 British pounds ($555), again from Amazon UK. Why then did HTC announce the One S and the One V? Why did Sony announce the Xperia P and the Xperia U?

I’m not saying it’s bad for companies to want to have their devices used by a large number of people. What I’m trying to figure out is why do companies say to themselves that they need to make a phone that hits a certain price point when instead they can simply keep on manufacturing a flagship device from one or two years ago and just offer it at a lower price?

It’s the same situation if you look at the car market. You can buy a brand spanking new BMW M3 if you want to, but you can also buy one that’s a few years old and save a lot of money. In fact, that “old” BMW M3 is probably cheaper than one of BMW’s cheapest 2012 models.

We need to get over ourselves that new somehow equals better. Whenever a company announces yet another midrange phone, I have to write it up, and I always remind my readers that they can get a better device simply by buying one that’s already been out on the market for a while.