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That expensive iPhone X might be cheaper than your coffee habit

Published Sep 27th, 2017 6:13PM EDT
iPhone X Price
Image: Apple Inc.

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We already know the iPhone X will be Apple’s most expensive iPhone ever. At $999, it’s $300 more expensive than the iPhone 8, which also happens to be more expensive than regular entry-level new iPhones.

But that doesn’t make the iPhone X less affordable unless you want to pay the full price when you purchase it. Apple and carriers will offer plenty of payment plants, upgrade trade-in deals, and other promos to convince you to buy Apple’s best phone ever. And what if someone told you that the iPhone X is less costly than your coffee habit?

If you purchase a $3 caffeinated drink at Starbucks every day, you may be surprised to find out that you spend more for coffee than iPhones. That’s a conclusion Business Insider reached after factoring in the amount of time most buyers keep their iPhones around.

The average US smartphone owner uses the smartphone for 22.7 months before upgrading. That means it costs $1.10 to use a 64GB iPhone 8, three times less than that $2.99 Starbucks coffee that many people order on a daily basis.

The 64GB iPhone X is more expensive, at $1.57. But it’s still less costly than the same beverage.

Business Insider also notes that a typical smartphone user touches the phone more than 2,600 times a day. Yes, it’s a lot more useful than coffee.

When putting things in perspective like that, you might discover that you spend more money on stuff that isn’t as useful as a $1,000 phone. The same argument can be made for the Galaxy Note 8 which is priced at $930, or the Pixel 2 phones that should be more expensive than their predecessors. That doesn’t mean you should stop buying overpriced coffee.

You just have to train your mind and wallet to deal with the shock. Spending $999 on a device sounds scarier than paying $3 for coffee if you don’t do the math.

The same report says you’d pay $0.79 per day to use both Netflix and Hulu each month, and $0.49 for the mattress that you sleep on — check the full graphic below.

Image source: Business Insider
Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.