just looks at galaxy a70 and asus zenfone 6, a70 will be $649 and will have 6'7 oled (probably most expensive component of a phone and i like huge screens). the asus doesn't have price yet but has SD855 and 6'4 screen. the a70 seems way better bang for buck than s10+ which is only 6'4 oled and $1.5k at release. are the cpu/memory worth that much? obviously only comparing AU models not cheap chinese flagship greys with no gst and selling at a loss. sorry if this is off topic im phone noob.
Entry Level: (AU$150 + tax/shipping) USD $100 or lower
SoC (Questionable efficiency, speed, radio performance, software polish, overall support, etc etc)
Made by Exynos, Kirin, MediaTek, RockChip, AMLogic, Allwinner, VIA, etc etc
28nm-12nm SoC using Cortex A53 - Cortex A55 chipset
1GB - 3GB DDR3 RAM
16GB - 32GB eMMC 5.0 storage
480p - 540p LCD display
USB 2.0, Mono loudspeaker, Regular Charging, No Water resistance, Glossy Plastic construction, Cheap front glass
I would estimate the profit margins here are almost non-existent (<10% or $20 ?).
Low-end: (AU$200 + tax/shipping) USD $100 - $150
SoC QSD 439/450/625/626/630/632
2GB - 4GB DDR3 RAM
32GB - 64GB eMMC 5.0 storage
720p LCD - IPS display
USB 2.0, Mono loudspeaker, Regular Charging, No Water resistance, Plastic construction, Tempered front glass
I would estimate the profit margins here are very slim (20% or $50 ?).
Midrange: (AU$300 + tax/shipping) USD $200 - $250
SoC QSD 636/670/660/665
4GB - 6GB DDR4 RAM
64GB - 128GB UFS 2.0 storage
720p - 1080p IPS display
USB 3.0, Mono loudspeaker+earpiece, Fast Charging, Water Splash resistance, Aluminium construction, Gorilla Glass front
I would estimate the profit margins here are slim (30% or $100 ?).
Upper-range: (AU$450 + tax/shipping) USD $300 - $400
SoC QSD 675/710/712/730
6GB - 8GB DDR4 RAM
128GB - 256GB UFS 2.1 storage
1080p IPS - OLED display
USB 3.0, Mono loudspeaker+earpiece, Fast Charging, Water Dunk/IP65 resistance, Aluminium construction, Gorilla Glass front
I would estimate the profit margins here are decent (50% or $200 ?).
Flagship: (AU$700 + tax/shipping) USD $500 or higher
SoC QSD 835/845/855
8GB - 12GB DDR4X RAM
256GB - 512GB UFS 3.0 storage
1440p - 4K OLED display
USB 3.1, Dual loudspeakers, Super Fast Charging, IP68 resistance, Kevlar/Titanium construction, Sapphire/Gorilla Glass front
I would estimate the profit margins here are very high (100% or $400 ?).
Unfortunately, to keep the upper management, stock market and investors happy what OEMs have done is to gradually increase the price of the flagship category and reduce expenses. One of the many ways they have reduced their expenses is by practically remover customer service, killing software support early, introducing planned obsolescence, using glass as cheap back housing, removing loudspeaker, removing headphone jack, removing microSD slot, removing FM radio, removing IrDa, downgrading usb ports, not doing IP certification etc etc. This probably saves them a decent -$100 in expenditure, combined with a price pull of +$300, and the overall difference becomes staggering at the mass scale (>10 Million units) annually. There's a lot of hidden things that are removed/downgraded by current phones with the Flagship Pricing, which are actually demonstrating Midrange Features. As an example, the OnePlus 6t is a good candidate as a Midrange Phone being in the Flagship Pricing, with poor justifications (marketing/spec bump), in contrast, to the LG G7 which has all the bells and whistles and is overall the better phone even though it doesn't have a big hype/marketing and feels less faster.
*Tax/Shipping should roughly come to around 20% extra on top of the cost. So when our dollar tanks, these commodities feel pricier and when it bounces up they feel more affordable.