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It's Google's strategy, really. Make smartphones super-cheap. It's working, and sadly, I don't think the market benefits from it.

I agree. One dominating mobile platform is Windows all over again. After the death of Amiga, computers became kinda boring really.

Well, i'm lining up for a Firefox phone. Or a BlackBerry. Whichever comes first.

I tried the BB tablet and was sold. That thing is snappy as hell. And that was 6 months ago.

/Uni

Edited 2012-12-04 10:29 UTC

I'd far rather have a Jolla or a Windows Phone 8 phone. But I'm sticking with my iPhone 4 till it dies because I don't see the point of upgrading. If the Jolla phones are cool, I'll get one. If Microsoft decides to allow sideloading without paying a stupidly large developer fee every year, I'll get one instead. As it stands nothing appeals to me as a developer. (especially as I already have an N7, Android is boring and Java still sucks.) Vendors - give me an OS that has a decent SDK that I can do something useful with! Please!

Actually economics says that that is exactly for the benefit of the market - lower price demands higher efficiency.

Right now, I'm more worried about Samsung's growth than Google's.

Why don't you think the market benefits from it?

I can see the negatives in cheap, but I see nothing wrong with technology being open to everyone, not just the rich elite and the technophiles.

Much like Windows (95 to 7), it isn't so much that I like the OS, but dislike the other options more.

Not sure I like the look of Jolla, to minimal for my liking. Firefox OS interests me more.

I'd prefer a new desktop OS at this stage, rather than a new Mobile one. I am fed up of the direction Apple, Microsoft, Gnome, Ubuntu are all going in.

That is how Microsoft got where it is now.

I remember having to get a PC with DR-DOS, instead of an Amiga 500, because that is what everyone else was having.

People don't want diversity as much as we geek want to, they just want something cheap that allows them to have the same set of applications as their friends have.

That should've been the end of the sentence, and I would've agreed. I don't see why enabling the production of cheap phones is a bad thing. It pushes up the number of available phone types&shapes&sizes, which is always good. While one might be a fan of diversity, I don't think we're at a point to start crying. Diversity for diversity's sake won't help us out. It wouldn't make us happier if all phones would be at or above Apple phone prices, or would it? Regardless of company or OS preference, I like the fact that we can get a usable phone well below the Apple price range. We're not in a point in time where we should think that phones belong to some exotic luxury category supported by a high price range. Also, the S3 is a capability-wise very acceptable piece of hardware, with a fairly usable and developable OS, so it doesn't make me sad that it's - at some places, at least - it's cheaper than Apple's offering.

And as always, the best course for good competition is: competition. Make better and/or cheaper alternatives (sometimes they - capability/price - go hand-in-hand, other times one of them wins over the other) and voila, there'll you have a more diverse phone ecosystem. It's not enough to "just" put something out there and say that's it's the better choice. People vote, and here you see the results.

Nonsense and FUD at the same time. I could write pages and pages why you are wrong (and maybe even like Engadget) but other wiser people have already done so:

https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/8KBkzumMEc1

What?! "The Market" I'd rather benefit consumers by having high powered, flexible devices in everyone's hands than benefiting some abstract notion of "the Market". Android is still the most open platform allowing and encouraging wild experimentation with hardware and software. I think that is a good thing that its doing better than Apple, Microsoft's, or Blackberry's platforms.

US non-contract pricing

Galaxy S3 - $699
Galaxy Note II - $799
HTC One S - $649
Droid RAZR MAXX - $799
iPhone 5 - $699

I think that global sales figures skew peoples view of reality when talking about Android being "cheap"...

China represents a full 27% of the global smartphone market by volume, but close to 70% of the phones sold there are from Chinese vendors you probably never heard of making ultra cheap Android knockoffs. This certainly makes Android look cheap because it skews the global sales charts dramatically. There are a few other Asian countries with very similar markets - they cheap phones sell well, but they are not from major global manufacturers and barely qualify as being called smartphones.

If you ignore China things look VERY different. The most popular priceband of smartphones globally is actually $450+ dollars (the highest priceband that IDC tracks)... That priceband makes up close to 45% of global volumes according to IDC... IF you leave out China.

In short Android phones simply are not cheap if you are talking about Western Europe and the US. There are certainly some cheap phones, but most people don't buy them... Android pricing is roughly comparable with Apple pricing, in some cases higher - even with contract discounts. The Note II goes for $299 with contract from AT&T, and that is a pretty popular model in the states.

The Nexus 4 is fairly cheap, but it is targeted at non-contract buyers primarily, and as such it simply won't get anywhere near the volume of other flagship models sold with contract discounts. The reality is in the States and most of Western Europe people buy phones under contract. Until that stops happening "cheap" Android phones don't have a prayer of making a big dent in those markets.