I'm going off topic now, but:
I still disagree with you regarding your take on the concepts of absolute and relative. You seem to understand absolute to be the actual difference, and relative to be the percentage difference. However, both of those measures are relative (and not absolute), just with different comparative units.
Looking at it absolutely will be saying it costs $400, is that good for me or not. (I.e. When looking at is absolutely, you are essentially looking at it versus zero). You forget about whether similar spec phones cost this or not (the second you compare, you are looking at it relatively).
Absolute as defined on Google: "viewed or existing independently and not in relation to other things; not relative or comparative."
There is no confusion from my side on the differences between relative and absolute. I am applying them with a consumer mindset, which I think is appropriate. I'm not arguing with how you are defining absolute and relative, perhaps just the context of the applications.
Any sort of association or comparison moves it away from absolute to relative within that context. Your budget will comprise of absolutely-costed values, but they have all been costed relative to your budget
So, in absolute terms, the device will cost you $450. However, this entire time the cost is
relative to your budget. Therefore if it is outside of your budget, it does not take away your need for a phone, and again, you need to compare devices whose costs come within the absolute cost within your budget.
/offtopic
In terms of the phone, I'm happy with 16GB ... have that on my S3 now. I only need the space for a couple apps and my photo's and videos. But I'll look at it closely when I'm there, maybe I'll just push myself for the 32GB
I actually found the same thing, when I initially bought my Nexus 4. I had a device with a memory card slot, but never really used it all that much. 32Gb will be more than enough for me, given that I generally don't use even half of the allotted space on my Nexus 4 to begin with. I would just like to future-proof myself, capacity wise, and I think that with the improvements in the camera (as well as Google working on a future API that will allow RAW image capturing), I would use it to take a fair few more photos.
The Nexus 4 camera leans very much to the average side of the camera spectrum. That is fine for a number of shots, but it does inherently instill less and less confidence in me using it as a regular point-and-shoot.
Edit: My vehicle analogy was just there to make a point. I employed the concept of Ceteris Paribus in that analogy so as to keep it simple. No need to complicate the matter for my analogy. You're welcome to create a full on financial model if you want, the point will still be the same
I know, but you would have to compare apples with apples to make it fair
On a side note- could you not sell the S3 to offset the cost of purchasing the Nexus 5?