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The story
A thread asking why people use pricey smartphones in the ¥200,000 (roughly $1,300) range drew 41 replies. Some gave practical reasons — taking photos and video at events where filming is allowed, or prioritizing camera performance and image quality — while plenty of others bluntly called it “vanity” or “flexing.” Others argued the phones aren’t really that expensive once you factor in payment plans (“residual-value credit keeps the monthly cost low,” “it’s cheap once you break it down per day of use”) or how long they keep the device. Meanwhile, some pushed back with stories of budget phones in the ¥10,000 range feeling sluggish and frustrating, turning the discussion into more than a simple expensive-vs-cheap debate.
What people said
There's no reason besides showing off that you've got money.
(Posted via 2chMate 0.8.10.241/Xiaomi/2512BPNDAG/16/DR — a popular 5ch mobile app that auto-signs posts with the device info)
Only about 10% of people buy one without really thinking about it.
Guys who could pay in full just find it a hassle to bother with piddly little monthly installments.
I've got no money, no honor, no social status — so the least I can do is carry the top-tier phone.
A guy like that couldn't afford one anyway.
Japanese consumers are flocking to residual-value-credit iPhones at ¥3,940 a month
https://kizuna.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/morningcoffee/1789426836/
there's always some part of the experience that's painful.
So I splurged and got one in the ¥20,000 range instead.
For ¥200,000 you could just buy an iMac Pro instead.
I use mine for 5 years, so that's a ¥30,000 phone over 60 months.
What garbage.
In the end I just set it up with a Rakuten Mobile eSIM and use it as a router instead.
Which model was it?
I've got the OPPO X9, switched over from a Pixel, and it's super smooth.
Putting up with constant little frustrations from a cheap piece-of-junk device is the real waste.
Because once you break it down per day, it's cheap.
I've never once felt a budget phone was slow.
Are you playing some kind of game on it or something?
This, exactly.
Even when the specs are more than enough for what you actually do, a cheap phone still irritates you with little lags in everyday use.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
High-end smartphone prices have climbed sharply in recent years, and the thread included a concrete example: a model that cost about ¥130,000 five years ago now has a successor priced nearly double, and matching the storage you used to get by adding an SD card means jumping to 1TB — tacking on roughly another ¥50,000. The ¥200,000 price point usually points to top-tier iPhone or Galaxy models — the “Ultra” or “Pro Max” tier — and some posters cited camera performance, video shooting, or attending photo-friendly idol/voice-actor events as their reason for owning one. On the other hand, the spread of “residual-value credit” plans, which let people carry an expensive handset without feeling the full monthly cost upfront, has also blurred people’s sense of what these phones really cost. In the end, the thread’s real fault line came down to a values question — vanity/one-upmanship versus genuine practical need — without either side reaching a clear conclusion. A lot of the back-and-forth turned into people sniping at each other over income and spending power, but that’s just typical 5ch thread heat, and should be read separately from the actual facts about pricing and features.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “What’s the point of using a phone that costs around ¥200,000?“
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