Yes, it's not. A huge chunk of the contract is to pay off the phone. Calculations like this make people get into crazy high depts because they onls think about the initial cost and forget about the huge tail.

As I was saying before I was rudely interrupted by oversenstive people that cant read between the lines and feel that I offended their sensibilities....

The OP is making a very valid point imo.  Any dedicated handheld device wil have a problem with exponentially increasing hardware specs of mobile phones that are re-iterated every year.  The PSVita especially is at risk here, it will appear very weak in 3 years... very, very weak.

(1st ban in over 18 months for that. wow!)

Anyway, thanks for posting the specs. Just one concern, how is the battery life expected to be? Does that A15 take a lot of juice? Will the 2000mAh be enough to make it functional? The Vita has borderline issues with battery life with the 2200mAh, for a phone to have around the same issue... disastrous. You mention it could have better battery life than iPhone 4s (which was disappointing wasn't it?), I want to know how so? To really get the use out of the device you'd have to enjoy high demand programs, is the iPhone 5 looking like a short lived gaming device? I'm sure running idle it lasts all day or more, but what if I play a few hours of the latest graphics pusher? Also, is there and advantage or disadvantage to a dual core?

Bolded is 100% false and proven by just rereading the quotes I summarized above. This must be where you are getting so wrong in this whole thing.

My only statements were that iPad3 and the stuff back then at MWC as well as launch details from CPU/GPU manufacturers showed that:
1) Vita would be matched within 6 mos (from March)
2) Vita would be matched and exceeded by end of year (2012)
3) Vita would be greatly exceeded in 2013

I never said, in March, that Vita was being surpassed or even matched at that time by anything currently in the market or launching right then (i.e. iPAd3)... hell even the summation right in the OP of that thread clearly shows that I never said iPad3 or anything else already known beat/matched Vita... just that FUTURE (from March) phones/tablets would within the dates I just mentioned above. Hell, the last two quotes show that we both were waiting to see how it all ends in the end of the year. Clearly we weren't talking about phones/tablets on the market right then. I mean why the hell would I even bring up the 3 to 6 months thing if I was talking about product that was available in March?

I never said ALL phones released this year would match/surpass Vita. I said exactly what is detailed in 1,2,3 above... it would be matched in 3 to 6, most match or exceed by end of 2012, and soundly exceed in 2013. Dude, calm down and just reread the quotes... its all there. 

You also quoted me every time so its not like I could of changed it. The summations above clearly show that. Again, I think you had a different convo in your head than what is written above. 

As for iPhone5, I said it will match Vita as I was thinking A6 would be same quad-core chip. Its right there in those linked quotes.

Simple fact is I was right on the 3 to 6 month part, you weren't. That's all I said in the OP of this thread, a thread that while called you out was for a lot more people that just you. Now we'll see if 'most' phones/tablets coming out at the end of the year (i.e. last few months) match or exceed Vita as well as everything in 2013. There should be obvious caveats with this. Android and WP OEMs do put out high-end and low-end product. Of course the low-end cheap shit is not included in this... only the high-end normal stuff.

Finally, there's nothing to get over. I actually don't know why you're pushing a different discussion that what is 100% clear in the linked quotes. I think you are taking this personally. Hell, I've been wrong, its not a big deal. Granted I don't make threads about me being wrong, but I do admit it when it happens.

Wanna know the big things I've been wrong about if it will make you feel better? One was my sig, two was that Wii would get 3rd party support where it would be the primary console around 2009, third was that PS3 would pass 360 in world wide sales in ... I think I said 2010 but can't remember if I meant early or late 2010 or maybe early 2011, fourth was that Kinect would flop and not sale to 10% of 360s userbase (I was good on Move though).. and so forth. 

It happens and its not a big issue. Granted I've been right a far more things like Vita being matched (or exceeded) within 6 mos from March.

Bolded is 100% false and proven by just rereading the quotes I summarized above. This must be where you are getting so wrong in this whole thing.

The A15 is more powerful and it most likely has higher clock speeds than the A9 in the 4S, but it is most likely being made on the 32nm process (instead of the 45nm like on the 4S), so it is 22% smaller and uses less power.

LTE does use more power which is why Apple waited so long to implement LTE. Qualcomm's 28nm LTE chip reduced the size and power usage for LTE usage. Previous LTE chips were larger used more power.

According to the Apple website battery life is:

iPhone 5                                                                                 iPhone 4S                                                                    iPhone 4