New Delhi, June 15 -- spend $500, get 85 percent of a flagship phone. But that math stopped working sometime this week, when Best Buy started selling an "excellent" condition Pixel 10 Pro - Google's full-fat flagship with a Tensor G5 chip, triple cameras, and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 - for $678.99 shipped. The Pixel 10a costs $500. The upgrade to the better phone now costs $179.

that most buyers would never encounter a moment where the gap between "flagship" and "budget" shrank to a figure smaller than a monthly car payment. Father's Day deal season, accelerating Prime Day previews, and a broader softening of premium Android prices have conspired to make that assumption look precarious.

The tension runs deeper than one open-box listing. A...