Price of new smartphone set to hit $1,000

As the public gears up for another smartphone battle between Samsung and Apple this fall, there is a new wrinkle for the average smartphone customer to consider: prices that edge toward $1,000 for a new phone.

The Note 8, Samsung’s latest premium smartphone, starts at $940. For months, analysts have speculated that the 10th anniversary edition of the iPhone, which will debut at Apple’s rumored Sept. 12 event, could be even higher. Even for smartphone customers used to paying $800 or $900 for a phone, the $1,000 mark may seem a bridge too far. For that, after all, one could easily get a pretty good laptop — a MacBook or Surface Laptop, for instance.

What’s behind the price increases? Some of it is pure function, as these phones do more than even the standard iPhone or Galaxy models. In general, smartphones carry more technology than ever before. While they aren’t yet laptop replacements, smartphones are required to do more than ever before as people rely on them for way more than web browsing or phone calls. Making something versatile, portable and with enough battery life to endure being used every moment of the day isn’t cheap.

The smartphone-buying public is also craving innovation from this latest batch of phones. And innovation is expensive. The Note 8’s 6.3-inch edge-to-edge screen is its main feature, and a costly one. The same is true of Apple’s expected super-sharp OLED screen in the iPhone; the phone could also have new facial recognition technology and wireless charging, which all contributes to its bigger price jump.

Another part of it, of course, is profit. Apple and Samsung are very good at making money — in fact, they’re basically the only ones in the smartphone business who make any on their phones. Both companies declined to comment. It’s hard to say whether anything will really justify a smartphone price that large in the average consumer’s minds. But the point for Samsung and Apple is that they may not have to.

For one, both are looking at markets where people have been waiting to upgrade for a while. Given the Note 7 debacle and Apple’s decision not to substantially upgrade the iPhone 7, there are plenty of people with extra cash champing at the bit to get their hands on something brand-new and spectacular.

Secondly, in the case of both the Note 8 and the rumored upcoming $1,000 iPhone, these are top-of-the-line phones for the companies, both a cut above the “everyone” phones: think Lexus, not Toyota.