When Apple unveiled its Vision Pro virtual reality glasses last year at a tech conference, many onlookers cringed at the price: $3,500. That’s more than four times the cost of a new iPhone and 14 times the cost of a competing Meta handset.
The headset, which Apple has marketed as a computer, movie player and game engine, will hit stores on Friday. Before its release, the debate centered on its price: Many wondered why people would pay so much to do what they could already do with their PCs, TVs and game consoles.
However, the actual cost of owning the Vision Pro is probably even higher. Try $4,600. This is because the price increases with the add-ons and accessories that many people would like to buy, such as:
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Apple’s $200 carrying case to protect the Vision Pro on the go.
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A pair of headphones, like Apple’s $180 AirPods, to listen to music in private.
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A $200 battery backup for more use from the headset (because with only two hours of battery life, the headset won’t last long enough to play a full-length movie).
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$100 prescription lens inserts for those who wear glasses.
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Replacement cushion $200 to fit glasses to another family member.
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An extra $200 for the larger data storage option (512 gigabytes instead of 256 gigs on the base model) to keep more videos and apps on the device.
And these are just the extras that many consider a must-have. Other options, including Apple’s $500 extended warranty coverage, a $70 video game controller, and a very cheesy $50 battery case to clip to your pants, could push the price well over $5,000 — before taxes.
While I have your attention with these amazing numbers, we can all learn a valuable lesson from Vision Pro about “phantom costs,” the extras that greatly inflate the amount we spend. For electronics, including smartphones, computers and VR headsets, they can include cases and charging gadgets.
A clear understanding of the true cost of technology ownership is vital for any consumer trying to keep control of their budget, said Ramit Sethi, a personal financial advisor. He said he learned about phantom costs when he bought a Honda Accord about 20 years ago. At first he thought he was spending $350 a month on the car to pay off his loan. The actual cost came to $1,000 a month after adding maintenance, insurance, gas, parking and tolls.
“Companies are counting on you not being able to do the math,” said Mr. Sethi, who hosts a podcast on the psychology of money. “The bigger the market, the more money you spend invisibly.”
These lessons apply to all the tech products we use regularly, not just Apple hardware. Let’s face the fantastic cost of a Windows PC and a Samsung phone.
Windows computer
Microsoft is selling the Surface Laptop 5 at a starting retail price of $1,000. But after adding some add-ons in the Microsoft store, it’s more realistically a $1,950 laptop — nearly double the sticker price.
Extras include:
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$500 for more memory.
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A pair of headphones, like Microsoft’s $250 headphones.
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$200 for the Microsoft docking station that charges the laptop and connects it to an external display.
Here, the biggest imaginary cost is memory, which is important to help the computer run multiple applications smoothly at the same time. Usually, computer manufacturers sell their base models with a modest amount of memory that is not likely to be enough to keep the computer running fast for many years, so it is wise to buy the model with extra memory.
The $1,000 base model of the Surface Laptop 5 comes with just eight gigabytes of memory, but most people are likely to need twice that to run the latest Windows operating system and new apps and games smoothly. The model that includes 16 gigabytes costs $500 more.
Samsung phone
Samsung’s new high-end smartphone, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, has a starting price of $1,300. But a $1,540 phone is more realistic.
Over the past five years, many smartphone makers, including Apple, Google and Samsung, have stopped shipping phones with basic accessories like earphones and charging bricks, a shift that has boosted their profit margins. And in keeping with the way PC manufacturers push memory sales, the base model of a smartphone typically includes a small amount of data storage that’s unlikely to be enough to hold your photos, videos, and apps for long. period of time.
First, a quick aside on storage. An average photo takes up five megabytes, according to Samsung. So downloading 3,000 photos would take up about 15 gigabytes. Popular mobile games like Fortnite and Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis gobble up tens of gigabytes. On Netflix, every hour of downloaded video for offline viewing takes up about one gigabyte. In short, data storage can run out quickly, so why get 256 gigabytes when you could spend around $100 more for double that?
If you don’t already have accessories to work with your new phone, you should stick to these add-ons:
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$30 for the Samsung charging brick.
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$40 for a Samsung protective case.
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$50 for the Samsung Wireless Headphones.
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An extra $120 to get 512 gigabytes to fit more photos and apps. (As of this writing, this data upgrade is free for a limited-time promotion.)
That doesn’t include the cost of using the phone with a modest wireless phone plan for, say, $70 a month. With wireless service included, the cost of owning this Samsung phone for three years is about $112.77 per month, or a total of $4,060.
Conclusion
The point is not to shame people into buying technology, but to raise awareness about what we really spend on new gadgets, which is a lot more than we think, Mr Sethi said. That’s why the best practice for most people who buy tech products is to hold on to them for as long as they can. This way they maximize the value they get not only from the devices but from the many extras bought for them along the way.
For comparison purposes, the examples above have shown the cost of additional devices such as headphones and cases if you were to buy them directly from the device manufacturers. A simple method to save money would be to shop around for cheaper third-party alternatives, but the purchases would still be fantastic expenses that raised the overall price of your technology.
All of which brings us to the biggest imaginary cost of regularly buying products like new phones and Apple’s Vision Pro: the price you pay to be installed in the first place.
“The more you buy a new phone, the more people around you expect you to have the newest thing, and the more you create an identity that you always have the newest thing,” Mr. Sethi said. “That’s the biggest imaginary cost of all.”
