Pretty much I guess. They wouldn't sell it for a high price if they're not using high quality materials to build those things right? I mean sure some items are really expensive and off the roof but you have to think about the actual build quality and all that stuff. Typically, cheaper products are cheaper to produce hence the price and with that price comes the quality. Some items are expensive but of low quality due to variety of things like the cost of the raw materials, how much it costs to produce those things etc. Maybe an item's raw material is expensive but production cost is really cheap, those kinds of things.
There is an electronic store here that sells cheap products at sometimes not even 1/3 of the regular price. Take the case of the AVR (automatic voltage regulator) that we bought a few months ago - .5 kva costing 500 pesos ($10). The popular brands have a tag price of 800 pesos at the lowest and the high end is selling for 1,600 pesos. That AVR is made in China and they say it is not durable. Well, it remains to be seen.
More expensive doesn't always equal better quality. Beats headphones are a shining example, most audiophiles will tell you, the quality and build of them flat out sucks for the price they charge for them. There are even web sites which disassemble them to show you the insides, so you can see how cheaply they are built. This shouldn't be much of a surprise since they were initially developed by the folks who made "Monster" brand CAT cables, which were too notoriously overpriced and not worth what they charged for them. Bose is another brand which is far more overpriced than the quality of the audio it delivers as well as the build quality of it's products. In the early 2000's some friends of mine showed me how the cones inside their speakers were actually nothing more than paper cones, and nothing particularly special. I was also gifted a pair of the Bose earbuds a few years ago, and similarly was not all that impressed for what they cost. Bose products are not overwhelmingly "bad" in terms of sound quality - they're respectable - but they just aren't worth the price, and once I heard the sound quality of some lesser known brands in a similar price range, I much preferred them over Bose. Shure earbuds are definitely worth the investment imo. Cuisinart, a brand I used to love, has also delivered some really lousy appliances in recent years as well. One of the worst I bought was their rotisserie oven, which I ended up throwing out in just a few weeks because it was so poorly designed. I was also annoyed to discover my friends Oster blender which cost like a third of what I paid for my Cuisinart blender, actually performed much better.
It's worth keeping in mind that there are companies that will eat a loss on a product, in order to lock you into their infrastructure. Amazon are the perfect example of this, in my opinion. Their Kindle Fire HD range are pretty decent. Nothing stellar, but they do what you need, they are sturdy and reliable and they have good sound. Cost wise they are wonderful! They are very much at the lower end of the price range, yet you wouldn't know it for the build quality of the devices. They sell them cheaply knowing that you are more likely to buy Amazon Prime in order to use them for their media streaming, and so they make the revenue through other means. So cheap doesn't always mean poor quality.
There's a line where you get diminishing returns as your item gets more expensive. I do a lot of research and try to get the best I can with the budget I have at any current time. I never go super cheap as that doesn't always turn out well.
I believe that this is true in most cases. However, in some instances, high price doesn't always mean good quality. Like what @ohiotom76 said, "More expensive doesn't always equal better quality." I know that apple devices have superb quality, but do they really deserve to be priced that way? But on the other hand, cheap less-expensive items do not necessarily mean low quality. Personally, I scour the internet for tips or suggestions every time I need to buy something. And as much as possible, I always look for lesser expensive stuff (who wouldn't?) to maximize savings. Sometimes, it's better to go for the cheap items first and try and test them than to go straight and buy expensive ones.
@mccanono I completely agree. Apple pricing just does not make sense to me, and nor does the group of fanboys (and girls) who will defend them to the death. There are those who are using old, small devices because they are somehow afraid of Android. I own an iPad (though an older generation), and three iPod Touch (one third and two fourth generation) so I have experience of the Apple world. I just don't think that it's so good as to merit the enormous price tag attached to it.
@YDdraig - I've done a little search on Google and found thisLog In where it says it only costs roughly $200 to manufacture a $649 iPhone 6. Of course, some would say, apple spent money on research, design, and what not, but still, the mark-up is undeniably too much.
I think the important thing is to research prior to buying the product. In my experience, I've bought expensive products that just didn't live up to the hype. I've also bought cheaper products that exceeded my expectations. It all depends on what the product has to offer.
I wouldn't be so upset with the price of something like an iPhone if the workers who made it got more of a fair deal. Instead it seems that they are exploited and worked into the ground in order to provide technology that they themselves could never afford. Thanks for the breakdown @mccanono, it furthers my feelings that expensive doesn't necessarily mean good quality.
