Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

The new iPhone 6 is finally set to launch in Chinese mainland on October 17.

Excitement over the new phone has already been fermenting for months. Since September, Internet forums and message boards have been flooded with discussions about the new Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Dozens of people have posted messages joking about exchanging a kidney for the new iPhone. Allegedly, a kidney and an iPhone 6 command a similar price on the market.

It was difficult to tell how many of the posters were just joking, and how many were completely serious. Is the iPhone 6 really that different from the previous version? Is it really worth losing a vital organ over?

I remember in the first year of graduate school, I spent two months' salary on a MacBook Air. I already had an IBM computer that worked like magic, so I didn't really need it, but it seemed like everyone in my school had one, and I didn't want to be the odd one out.

The sleek computers in their bags looked so thin and light. I became convinced that a MacBook Air would be a huge upgrade over my IBM.

How wrong I was. After finally buying one, I almost immediately regretted it. Unlike some other people at my school, who needed an Apple computer for using video editing or design software, everything I needed to do could be done on a regular old PC.

I couldn't get my head around the Apple interface, so my MacBook Air sat unused, like a $1,300 piece of scrap metal. Not two months later, I sold it to someone else.

Around the world, it was reported that the presale orders for the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus had exceeded 4 million units, a new record for Apple. But how many of these people are spending their money rationally?

After former apple CEO Steve Jobs passed away, the features of the new iPhone can be summed up in one word: big.

The marketing slogan for the iPhone 6 says as much: "Bigger than bigger," it proudly declares.

Jobs didn't think that anyone would buy an iPhone that was too large. He argued that a 3.5-inch phone was the most user-friendly. Perhaps what he didn't realize was that people would buy iPhones no matter what size they were, because what they are buying is not a phone, but a symbol of class and wealth.

I don't have a problem with people who buy an iPhone because they genuinely think they have better functionality or design. But I do think that these days, most people who buy iPhones do so for the sake of owning a symbol, because they think the iPhone represents a certain sophistication or affluent lifestyle.

I think more people should think twice before they buy.

This article was published on the Global Times Metropolitan section Two Cents page, a space for reader submissions, including opinion, humor and satire. The ideas expressed are those of the author alone, and do not represent the position of the Global Times.