Often you hear or read comments from bashers and non-bashers alike about how expensive Apple products are especially when there are new products released, just like the recent iPhone 5s. So the question is, does Apple really employ premium materials to their products that they’re worth that much?
I have a 3-year old, network-locked, 32GB (base model) iPhone 4 and a 2-year old unlocked Samsung Galaxy S II (SGS2). Both were selling at the same price level when they came out (~PHP32K). If you look closely at the spec sheets of both, SGS2 is the clear winner being a more recent smartphone and with a dual-core processor (see the comparison at the GSMArena). But today I can easily sell the iPhone 4 for PHP10,000 (~US$240) while the SGS2 for only PHP5,000 (~US$120). There goes your premium, ladies and gentlemen!
So, the follow up question is: what is driving such premium?
The user experience drives the demand for the products, even for the old products running on old hardwares.
user experience + the name of the company
I agree, in the end people don’t care as much about specs (the general public), as much as they care about ease of use and reliability, both of which Apple beats Samsung, hence the better resale value.