Good news for anybody worried that the latest raft of trendy Apple gadgets might break the four-figure price mark (and, correspondingly, the bank account of any tech addicts in your life): The New York Times reports that a premium version of the upcoming iPhone 8 will cost merely $999 at launch. New features on the shiny new device include a larger, higher resolution screen, the ability to unlock your phone by scanning your face, and the lurching feeling of standing at the top of the long, rocky slide into obsolescence and bankruptcy.
We did a quick eBay and Amazon search tonight, just to give a little comparison of the things you could spend that money on instead (besides, you know, rent and health insurance and frivolous things like that). For the $999 cost of the premium iPhone 8, you could get:
- 456 pounds of marbles, a.k.a. enough to thwart every Home Alone-esque house robber that might bedevil you for the rest of your life.
- This creepy $300 “haunted clown doll,” with $699 left over for barricades and disposal.
- Nearly five of these fancy robot vacuum cleaners A.V. Club Executive Editor Laura M. Browning is always telling the staff we need to buy.
- 800 gluten-free hot dog buns.
- 10 old iPhone 6s.
On the other hand, none of those items are quite as new and shiny as the 8—or will get you the time of day at the Genius Bar, unless the Geniuses really like stomach-friendly sausages—so for all our grousing, we all know we’re going to inevitably end up with one anyway.