[2000rpm]

Originally Posted by turbo

And that got me wondering, whats the cost of your phone, relative to the cost of your car?

Note 2: Mods, I was unsure whether to put this in Gadgets section, or in the Indian Car Scene section, so please feel free to move it as per your liking

Absolutely wrong comparison if you bring into consideration that a lot of us love used cars.

I have never bought a new car but I always buy the latest flagship killer in the market.

[lapis_lazuli]

For me a phone is mostly a calling/messaging device. Just a bare essentials, utility device. I have never spent much on phones, always looking at a processor from Qualcomm/Mediatek and longest battery life in that price band. Voted for 1st option.

[vjbox]

I am not personally a high end phone person but ironically end up using various phones for testing purposes since I am in the gaming business. So phones/ iPads are essentially investments for us with which our business runs. Speaking of this topic, I believe interest levels matters too here. One could be a petrol head spending loads of money in cars but can just use a basic android phone as he or she might not necessarily like or want a higher end device. We unfortunately live in an era and society where phones portray that fake sense of status. There is also that added peer pressure when it comes to buying/ upgrading these phones. I have seen many times with my employees, where one of them buys a latest phone and the rest follow suit. A behaviour I absolutely despise. Whats worse is buying them on EMI.

[Raghu M]

While this is an interesting thread, answering it straightly does not give a full picture. What about people who own 2 or 3 cars? How about owning a car for 6 to 8 years vs. owning a phone for not more than 2 years? For some people owning a state of the art gadget these days has become a necessity. With work from home, it has become all the more important to own a very good smart phone with good specs. I believe a phone and car cannot be compared in terms of cost. A phone is easily replaceable while a car is not. You use a car for 6 to 8 years on an average while a phone, hardly for one or two years. Also depends on how frequently you change gadgets. When I bought my current phone, I had my old car. Now I have a new car but the phone is the same. So should I combine both the cars cost? It may go well below 1%

I think a better thread would be what expense have you incurred on your car so far and what is the percentage of it on the total cost. What say?

[motorworks]

Very unique point of view here, cost of phones as a relative cost to your car!

For one, I cannot understand how a lot of youngsters today spend 50-90k on phones and then ride two wheelers or dont own a car! Ok, so the whole aspect of owning a car is a different topic, but I cannot still understand why someone would spend so much on a phone and still ride a two wheeler and not think about owning a car! No offence to two wheelers, but in India, you are always going to be safer in a car vs a two wheeler!

Personally, I have always had iphones for the last 8-9 years, changed them once in 3-4 years types. My current phone is an iPhone XR bought three years ago, it was expensive at around 75k, but I sold my two iPhones and purely bought this for the dual sim capability. And I see no reason as yet to change the phone at all. In comparison, my car is a Creta 1.6 SX, cost about 15 lakhs in 2018, probably going to hold on to it for another 3 years minimum.

[DonHyd]

I think, taking this a little further, we can also discuss what percentage of money you spend on your car in relation to the money you spend on your house.

If a person has a desktop and uses it for bulk of his work, then 20-25k budget will give him all the phone he will ever need and more. Regarding car, in my opinion, once again the budget between 20-25 lakhs will offer cars that tick all the right boxes. So, it comes to around 1%.

[Miel]

Since my teen years when I started collecting auto magazines and looking up spec sheets and price lists, I have always compared anything that costs 10K or more to a two-wheeler's cost, and 1 Lakh or more to a car's cost.

When I first heard the Apple iPhone Pro Max's price, I told my friend aloud in the store, "Sh*t Man! And it doesn't even have wheels !!!". People around burst out laughing, but I was dead serious.

I own more than one car and more than one phone. However, the average relative cost of my phone to car is 2.5%. I tend to keep both in immaculate condition, and prefer to keep them for long. I used a Blackberry for 4 years till it died in my hands, and an Android right now is in its 5th year running and streaming Netflix right now.

All said, I wouldn't be comfortable buying a phone which costs more than a commuter bike. ( If it is more than 50K, it better have wheels )

[The21st]

Personally for me, phone does a lot more things than my car. Usually my smartphone purchases are of 20k. My 2012 car cost approximately 7 lakhs. I always felt like car cost much than a phone but it's use is much less than a phone at least in my case.

Fact is 20k or even a 12k Redmi phones does what I want and even if someone want more perfomance, they can get a under 30k flagship killer. In the case of car people have a prestige issue and also more they spend, more the difference is in terms of improvements[At least I feel so].

Now if you are wondering why some people spent much on a phone but own a budget car, maybe it's because phone does much more than a car to them and they are willing to pay more for something that they use all the time than something which is going to idle for the majority of time

[divyadeeptsi]

My IPhone XR costed 50K in 2019, is roughly 6.25% to my new car Polo TSI bought last month.

In my opinion, a phone is used for majority of its life cycle especially for me as my avg daily screen on time easily crosses 9Hr+, whereas a common man is hardly able to use the car for more than 5-10% of its potential.

In terms of phones I think 15-20K is the best category, any amount over and above that rarely gives any additional worth in terms of features as compared to the premium charged.

[smukherjee]

Interesting thread.

It's less than 1% as of now and quite a few ppl have commented the same, maybe you can add an option. Only difference being I generally keep my car for 8 yrs or more whereas I buy a new phone every 18-24 months. So cumulatively, 1-4% bracket may be correct.

[mufeez1234]

Interesting topic but a comparison of apples to oranges IMHO.

I think it finally comes down to individual preferences as I have seen my neighbor in G63 who still uses his old Blackberry and another guy in his beat Santro 1st Gen always maintaining latest phones.

[fhdowntheline]

I have an iPhone 11Pro which I purchased for an effective price of 65000 at launch in Oct-19. How ? It was actually at 92000 Rs, but my previous iPhone 8Plus was exchanged at 27000 odd. Right now, if I need to upgrade to say an iPhone 12 Pro Max, I would still be getting about 35000 odd off on my current phone.

This is like exchanging a Swift/Dzire for car upgrades. There is no doubt that premium phones offer better value in that sense.


Now- is there a need for me to upgrade, no other than the fact that the bigger display will be better for my 45+ eyes.
But in terms of form/functionality an upgrade is not required as such. The good thing about iPhone is the Apple ecosystem especially when you have a MacBook and the fact that it still remains a relatively more secure system than the other platforms.

My iPhone 11 will get atleast 2-3 major updates for the next 2 years. My wife's Zenfone Max Pro, purchased 3 years ago, is stuck on Android 9 since 2019. Its last security patch was in Sep-2020 (the equivalent of spare parts for the car). So I am not at all confident of using her phone for transactions even though the Google Play Store generally claims to keep its apps healthy.

[dhanushs]

I would like to see the poll results, if the same question is asked in Tech forums.

[shrjun]

0.00172 %

Cheapish Nokia

Based in Singapore , so that should explain the above!

[jagdish_ker]

My phone which I bought in Feb 2021 costed more than 25% of current market price of one car and 6% of second car. Different criteria for spending on phone and car. Prefer a used car without a loan (up to 50% loan in case there is not choice other than buying new). Can’t digest the concept of buying phone on loan unless it is an interest & processing fee free EMI.