By 2010, everyone was shipping most of their mobile devices with Andoid OS. Giants like HTC, Samsunng and Sony switched to Andoid in time, but the scenes were different for Nokia, and in short, since they couldn'y oevrcome the pain of loosing all they invested in Symbian and died sticked to it.
Google provided the Android open sourced and thus accessible to anyone with device specific mods and this was when the small brands started growing, giving everyone a tough competition as they had the similar memory size(RAM), similar storage, similar or same processor, and similar camera with almost same no. of mega-pixels. Now not just apples were over priced, big brand androids were in the same list of over priced devices.
Nokia was known for long life, even today in 2016, people are using their, N-series mobiles, not only those 1100s. So, the brands come with durability. They use all the things, the charger, cable, housing, chips and all these, of the best quality as per their QC standards, and the bigger brands undoubtedly have better QC standards, this proved you a more long lasting phone, specially when you have brought some flagship and expect it to last more than a couple of years.
My colleague been using several Xiaomi devices, some of them as their primary devices because they were cheap for a flagship specs at their time. It has been more than two years and they started showing weird problems, like dying after sudden heating issue, burned out or darkened displays, sudden board / memory failures ending in death, with huge repair costs.
1. CAMERA - Mega Pixels is not the everything.
Yes, megapixels make difference, but they are not the only parameter deciding the image quality. The sensor, binding of the software with OS, the lens quality, the camera module technology, the optimizations, all these make difference, and this you get better pictures at most environments, and not only when outdoor.
2. All 2 GB RAMs are not the same thing.
, on different Android versions, because optimization, yes it does.
3. Just the no. of cores in the processor or even the same processor doesn't gives same performance in all devices as several other factors alter the figures.
The RAM theory equally applies with the CPU or the processor. The kernel optimization and binding and bla bla, all these yield better performance if done properly and here again, the R&D of the brands win.
Sum up points 2 & 3, and when they are in place, you will bet better battery backup. Th smartphone's battery is so small to leave a battery drain leak point, a component fails to close its threads on time and you are out of battery. So bigger battery isn't sufficient and neither an alternative to optimizations.
5. Putting the latest Gorilla Glass doesn't always means a stronger ditigizer or touch unit.
Samsung was called as "Samesung" because they kept bringing all new models with same design , yes if you remember, the models from low end to flagships were exactly same in shape and design. This was because they were cutting costs in designing, the cost of designing a robust model, which distributes impacts enough well that the screen doesn't breaks every time when it falls down. So, the design matters, it is not just the Screen glass quality that decides the chances of keeping it unbroken when it falls. It if decades old technology, impact-damage research, the Volvo and Mercedese are doing enough well with their cars though.
6. Screen : Higher resolution figures are not sufficient to be called the better display.
No one can deny that Apple iPhone 4 has crispier are better display than today's flagships, even the brands like Sony fail to provide a better flagship display than that Apple's years old display, having several folds of more pixels than that iPhone. Samsung is the source of most Apple displays, and even the S6 can't beat the Display quality of iPhone 6s most of the time. This is a bitter truth and we can't deny. So colour tone, technology used, and even the class of the same technology makes big difference, here again, brands win.