Smartphone pricing

Cheaper topflight smartphones

HTC versus Samsung: what would you choose?

There are some wonderful smartphones on the market for people with deep pockets.  Samsung's Galaxy S4 has been launched this week for the bargain price of $NZ1,149 (Hmmm).  Samsung also has the Galaxy Note and the upcoming behemoth, Galaxy Mega is really a phablet (tablet-phone) rather than a pocket phone.

All very nice but a bit steep for my tastes.  As the IDC 2013 survey of the phone market demonstrated Samsung is far and away the world's biggest manufacturer of smartphones at 32.7%.  Apple clearly controls its own iOS market but no other Android manufacturer can manage even a 5% share, so crowded is the market.  So what do you do to persuade consumers to come over to you rather than opt for a Samsung?  It's unlikely that you are going to out-specify an equivalent Samsung model so probably the best advantage can be gained from offering a better bang for your buck.  Huawei does this very well with well specified but cheap as chips models.  If you don't buy into the consipiracy theories around chinese manufacturers they represent a sound budget option.

Originally a darling of the market but falling back in sales figures is HTC.  Their flagship HTC One  is well respected and a top choice but still lags well behind equivalent Samsung models in sales.  So what are they going to do about it?  Well, there are strong rumours that HTC are looking to introduce a new model with similar specs to the One but much cheaper.

Got to be good for the consumer as the price of these pocket wonders just keeps coming down.

HTC One review (TechRadar)

Is HTC releasing a cheaper high spec model?

Cheaper smaller variant ruomoured for HTC (IGN)

HTC still a favourite with the reviewers (TechRadar)