Planning on buying an upcoming flagship phone? Tipster has some bad news about pricing
If you're looking to upgrade to a new flagship phone, you will have your choice from among the most popular top-of-the-line handsets starting next month and continuing through February of next year. In September, Apple will release the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max. The following month, it will be the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro's turn to be in the spotlight. And in February 2024, we should see the Galaxy S24 line released by Samsung.
According to X tipster @heyitsyogesh, all of those flagship lines will have something in common. Can you guess what it is? All of the aforementioned models will have a higher price tag and as Yogesh wrote in his message, "We will be seeing a $50 - $200 price jump on all major flagships depending upon the variants." While the tipster also includes the Xiaomi 14 series, these phones will not be available in the U.S.
Consumers should expect higher prices for flagship smartphones released over the next six months
The latest rumor involving the iPhone 15 line is that we could see the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus remain locked in at $799 and $899 respectively. That would be not bad considering that the new non-Pro iPhones this year are getting the Dynamic Island, a 48MP stacked image sensor (one year before the Pro models!), the 4nm A16 Bionic chipset that currently
powers the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, a USB-C charging and data transfer port, and a boost in battery capacity.
Tipster posts good news for phone manufacturers, bad news for consumers
We could see as much as a $100 hike in the starting price of the iPhone 15 Pro taking it to $1,099, and a $200 hike in the starting price of the iPhone 15 Pro Max tagging the phone at $1,299 and up. Last year, Apple kept the iPhone price in the U.S. unchanged at 2017 levels. Overseas, pricing rose but the strong U.S. dollar means that foreign iPhone revenue converted to the U.S. greenback would decline without an overseas price hike. This year, with the U.S. dollar slightly weaker, foreign currency translates into more dollars for Apple which means that higher iPhone prices are more likely to take place in the States.
Apple might have to give the iPhone 15 Pro Max a larger price hike than the iPhone 15 Pro because the top-of-the-line model will be the first and only iPhone to feature a periscope lens. This is a folded-up lens with prisms at the bends to allow light captured by the camera to travel to the image sensor. It will allow Apple to offer up to 6x of optical zoom on the iPhone 15 Pro Max compared to the 3x optical zoom offered on the iPhone 14 Pro Max. Both phones will be powered by the 3nm A17 Bionic, feature a USB-C port and a titanium build.
Partially offsetting the higher pricing for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max could be a hiked amount of minimum storage on those models to 256GB from 128GB. Apple might do this to add a 2TB storage option for the iPhone 15 Pro line.
The Pixel 8 series and the Galaxy S24 series would also be in line to receive price hikes
Based on the tipster's post, we could see the Pixel 8 starting anywhere from $649 to $799 although a raise to $649 would seem much more likely. And with the Pixel 8 Pro probably remaining $300 more than the non-Pro Pixel, a starting price of $949 for the Pixel 8 Pro is possible. This dovetails with a separate rumor from last month.
Turning to Samsung's flagship series, the Galaxy S24 model is expected to join the other two variants and start with 256GB of storage. That could lead Samsung to raise the starting price of the Galaxy S24 by $50 to $100 which would put it in a range of $849-899. The domino effect would push the Galaxy S24+ starting price to a range of $1,049-$1,099 and move the Galaxy S24 Ultra to $1,249-$1,299,
If the tipster is right, all of the manufacturers will be hiking their prices which would prevent any one phone brand from taking advantage of its rivals hiking prices. What is also interesting here is that everything is dependent on Apple raising its prices for the iPhone first. We will know much more on September 12th when Apple is rumored to be unveiling its 2023 iPhone line. Pre-orders could start on September 15th with the release date coming a week later. Apple could announce the official dates at anytime.
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