China rising, is the reason the droid market will take such a hit. some phones coming out of china like the one plus one, just make it impossible for other manufacturers to compete with the one+one $300 price tag.
HTC, unknown manufacturer, and lets face it, people are brand fiends. they rather buy a Samsung S5 over the superior HTC M8
abd
Sony doesnt exactly set the bar for stuff any more, even their tvs are made by Sharp. the xperia was also a terrible phone
i checked out the iphone 6 while passing through bestbuy, for build quality next to the HTC M8 the iphone build quality is inferior, it seems more on par with the nexus, even iphone 5 seems more sturdy in your hand
interestingly enough google is trying to shut samsung out of the android market to distance their reliance on their manufacturing capabilities. So samsung is predicted to lose upto 20% of the android market share this year. there is rumor samsung will try and launch its own OS/phone, something google does not want to be blind sided by.
i am interested to see what the new nexus 6 offers (Nov?), it always brings the latest tech with a launch price of $350
anecdotally, i had accidentally sat on my galaxy S2 being in my back pocket during a long car ride, only realizing once i had reached my destination. expecting the screen to be cracked, i was happily surprised to discover it had no deformities or damage
I can see why apple is such a highly valued company, their margins are pretty insane.
http://www.techinsights.com/teardown.com/apple-iphone-6/
there is only a $20 difference between the 6 and 6 plus in parts costs, but the actual retail price is off by several hundred
but in the end, buy whatever makes you happy some of us buy Rolex, some prefer Panerai, some like both! and a few like omega too