Features or price? A trade-off for smartphone shoppers

Rahin Hasan Noman moved from one shop to another at Jamuna Future Park, hoping to find a smartphone that met his needs without stretching his budget.
Preparing for university admission tests, he had come with his parents, who had set aside Tk30,000 for the purchase. 
But finding a handset with the right combination of features at that price was proving difficult.
“I want a decent camera, a good processor and at least 8GB of RAM. But after checking three or four shops, I found that phones with enough RAM often lack a good camera, or vice versa. Now I have to decide which feature to sacrifice,” he said.
For buyers like Noman, purchasing a smartphone is increasingly becoming a trade-off between performance, features and affordability.
As handset prices rise amid mounting pressure on household budgets, middle-class consumers are struggling to find devices that meet their expectations without spending more.
For many families, smartphones are no longer a luxury but a necessity for education, work and everyday communication. 
Yet rising prices are forcing buyers to stretch their budgets, settle for lower specifications or turn to the unofficial market.
Jebunnahar, who visited Bashundhara Shopping Mall with her husband, was looking for a replacement handset within a budget of Tk30,000 to Tk36,000.
She had used an iPhone 8 for about eight years before an accident damaged its display, prompting her to look for a new phone.
“Buying a phone used to be simple. I knew which brands offered the best options in each price range. Now I do not know what to buy,” she said.
Md Jahangir, who had a budget of Tk35,000, was considering buying an unofficial handset after struggling to find a suitable model within his price range.
“It is difficult to find a good phone in this price range. I think I will go for an unofficial version,” he said.
Although unofficial handsets can be considerably cheaper, they often lack official warranties and reliable after-sales support, leaving buyers to weigh immediate savings against potential repair costs and other risks.
Retailers say rising procurement costs are making smartphones more expensive for consumers.
Shawkat Talukdar, a smartphone retailer, attributed the price increases to global chipset shortages and higher purchasing costs.
“We buy the phones at a higher cost, so we have to sell them at a higher price,” he said.
Despite the price increases, demand remains steady as smartphones have become essential to everyday life.
Shamim Reza, a manager at Dazzle, said consumers continued to purchase smartphones despite the rising costs.
“Everyone needs a smartphone nowadays. So even though prices have risen, sales have not stopped because there is always demand in the market,” he said.
Tax changes, AI boom drive up costs
The pressure on smartphone buyers reflects a combination of domestic tax changes and rising global component costs, particularly for memory chips, as technology companies ramp up investment in artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure.
In January, the interim government reduced mobile phone import duties by 15 percentage points in an effort to lower handset prices and discourage purchases from the grey market.
However, the temporary relief expired on 30 June, pushing the total tax burden on legally imported handsets to 64.25%, according to the Mobile Phone Industry Owners Association of Bangladesh (MIOB).
Meanwhile, growing investment in AI infrastructure has intensified demand for semiconductors and memory chips, putting additional pressure on supplies for consumer electronics.
According to Counterpoint Research, memory accounts for more than 40% of the bill of materials for a premium smartphone.
Memory prices rose by more than 80% quarter-on-quarter in the second quarter of 2026, while global smartphone prices increased by 15% during the year, according to figures cited in the research.
More than 40% of smartphone models worldwide experienced price increases in 2026.
To contain production costs, manufacturers are responding by reducing storage capacities, simplifying camera configurations and introducing more 4G models.
Budget and mid-range smartphones are particularly vulnerable to rising component costs because memory accounts for a relatively larger share of their production expenses.
These are also the segments on which many middle-class consumers depend, making price increases especially difficult to absorb.
For buyers, the impact goes beyond higher price tags. A smartphone that previously offered a balanced combination of camera quality, processing power and memory may now require a bigger budget.
Cheaper alternatives, meanwhile, often come with compromises in performance, storage capacity or after-sales service.
For Noman, the dilemma remains unresolved.
With his budget fixed at Tk30,000, finding a smartphone that meets his expectations means deciding which features matter most and which he can afford to sacrifice.
As handset prices face continued pressure from domestic taxes and rising global component costs, such compromises are becoming an increasingly familiar reality for middle-class consumers in Bangladesh.