If you have been holding out for a cheap phone deal, you might want to act fast. New data from Counterpoint Research shows smartphone sales below $100 in the US dropped a staggering 64% year over year in the second quarter of 2026. Overall smartphone sales fell 5% too as rising costs squeeze both shoppers and phone makers at once.
Two separate pressures are colliding here. Rising gas and goods prices, driven partly by conflicts in the Middle East, have already cut into how much people can spend on electronics. At the same time, memory chip prices have climbed sharply, largely because massive tech companies are buying up huge amounts of RAM for their own AI infrastructure needs.
This has hit budget smartphones the hardest, since manufacturers either raise prices to cover the cost or stop making cheap models altogether. Carrier-branded white-label phones, the generic budget models sold directly through carriers, have been hit especially hard by these price increases.
Bigger phone makers are weathering this far better than smaller ones. Combined sales for Apple, Samsung, Motorola, and Google fell just 4%, while every other brand combined dropped a brutal 45%. Smaller companies simply cannot buy components in bulk the way giants can.
HMD, the company behind Nokia phones, already exited the US market entirely last year. Meanwhile, Motorola raised prices on its popular budget lines, and Samsung did the same, which oddly caused the $200 to $299 price range to nearly triple in market share.
We can expect prices to climb further too, since Apple is expected to raise iPhone 18 pricing this fall, and Google’s new Pixel 11 already costs more than last year’s model.
Are you tired of paying for streaming services you never watch just to get a phone plan feature you actually want? T-Mobile has good news for you! The carrier is rolling out new plans, called T-Mix, in early November to replace its old Experience lineup with a build-your-own perks system called Picks.
The benefits you choose vary from streaming and gaming to food delivery, AI, satellite service, and phone discounts. But if you are satisfied with your existing plan, you can keep it.
Merely days after the iPhone Duo hit the shelves, images of broken screens on the phone started popping up across social media. Until now, it’s been unclear what’s causing the line of defective pixels that appears vertically along the crease, as well as horizontally, on the phone’s inner display.
Apple has finally acknowledged the issue, which has shown up on iPhone Duo units owned by customers as well as demo units in stores. In a statement shared with Bloomberg, Apple says that not all iPhone Duo units are affected and that those that are tend to show the display fault early on. The company added that users who experience problems with their iPhone Duo display should contact AppleCare for a replacement.
Not long ago, Apple treated independent repair like an act of outright hostility. The Cupertino giant locked down parts with serial-number pairing, while repair tools remained firmly out of reach of anyone outside its authorized repair network. More importantly, the company waged a legal and lobbying battle against right-to-repair legislation.
I've covered enough of these fights over the years to know what a shift looks like. That's why what happened in October 2026 genuinely caught me off guard. The day the iPhone Duo went on sale, what may be the most mechanically complex iPhone to date, Apple pulled off a surprising about-face. It published teardown-style repair manuals for a handful of major components.