But the $999 starting price on Apple’s 2017 iPhone has raised a new question: Is any smartphone worth a thousand dollars?

Well, I’m here to make the case for a strong “maybe.” And to make my point I want to bring up a few trends that have been present in the industry.

The Competition

From an industry perspective, Apple is not the only company to think it’s justified in its pricing. Prices for smartphones have been steadily creeping up over the last couple years.

Samsung’s Galaxy S6 was the first of the company’s S series smartphones to cost more than its respective iPhone counterpart, at $699; now the Galaxy S8 has a starting price of $725. And The Galaxy Note 8 starts at $930, which is up from last year’s $850.

The original iPhone cost $599 in 2007. The iPhone 6 cost $649 in 2014, and the new iPhone 8 starts at $699.

Even companies like OnePlus, which focuses on quality mid-market devices, has raised the entry-level phone to $479, up from $399 just a couple years ago. These might appear to be only incremental shifts, but they reflect a definite trend across the industry.

However, Google doesn’t seem to be following this trend just yet. Its recently announced Pixel 2 has a starting price of only $649, which is a compelling argument for a flagship smartphone that’s meant to compete with the likes of the iPhone and the Galaxy series. That said, this is only Google’s second year building its own hardware for a smartphone, and it’s too soon to tell whether Google will hop on the high-priced bandwagon.

The Pixel 2 may be priced on par with past iPhones now, but if the Pixel 2’s lack of a headphone jack and recently renewed interest in augmented reality means anything, it seems that Google doesn’t mind following industry trends.

The Performance

The most compelling argument I’ve seen for escalating smartphone prices has to do with their computing power. The last few years have brought a dramatic rise in performance from many mobile devices.

In 2015, Microsoft announced Continuum, a feature that enables someone with a proprietary dock accessory to turn their phone into a full-on desktop computer (assuming this person has a keyboard, mouse, and monitor handy).

Samsung revealed a similar feature with its Galaxy Note 8. DeX replicates that same functionality, and the Note 8’s processors made running performance-intensive apps seamless.

With products like this and Microsoft’s Surface tablets, we’ve seen huge advances in what mobile devices can accomplish. The iPhone 8 and iPhone X take this to the next level, with early benchmarks revealing that Apple’s new mobile processors blow competitors out of the water.

If you don’t know, benchmarking apps like Geekbench put computers through their paces in a way that allows them to score their performance. They are not always the most reliable, seeing as some manufactures attempt to cheat the program. However, the A11 Bionic chip Apple includes in its newest phones has been widely praised. And recent testing shows the iPhone 8 performs about as well as the 13-inch MacBook Pro laptop.

To put this into perspective, if I owned a new iPhone or any high-end, 2017 flagship smartphone, I would have an easier time editing 4K video on my phone than I would on my 2014 Mac Mini—a desktop computer. That may not seem impressive, but up until this point it’s just been a given that desktop computers are more powerful than smartphones. That is changing.

The Utility

If you don’t feel the need to upgrade your device every year or two, and you’re perfectly fine with an older smartphone, that’s OK. Timely software updates from manufacturers make this an option that’s viable and growing in popularity.

But for many Americans our smartphones are becoming the central hub of our lives. And as these mobile electronics get more advanced, we can do more on our phones than is possible on a laptop.

As a fun hypothetical, let’s assume you are going on a business trip and you can only bring one electronic device. Would you bring your laptop or your smartphone?

Since it’s a business trip, the answer may be not be so simple. You may think you absolutely need the documents available on your laptop. You may do all your work on your laptop, and there’s nothing else that will allow you to view your data like a full-size computer can.

Except that’s not entirely true.

Unless you use advanced creative apps like Adobe Creative Cloud or professional audio/video apps like Final Cut or Pro Tools, you are more than able to accomplish everything on your smartphone.

That’s not to say there won’t be any tradeoffs. Viewing larger spreadsheets can get tricky and typing longer documents may be bothersome, but it’s definitely possible. Microsoft, Google, and Apple all make mobile versions of their most popular office software, and with the cloud you can pull almost any saved file from the internet as long as you have access.

If you choose your smartphone in this situation you’ll have the convenience of accessing the internet whenever and wherever you want. If you’re willing to spend about 10 minutes before your trip to figure out how to adjust your workflow, it could pay off with a much lighter carryon bag. You’ll have a device that handles all your daily tasks… and you’ll have a phone.

When you keep all these factors in mind—the unmatched utility, the impressive performance, and the inevitability of these trends—it makes the increasing prices of smartphones a little easier to swallow.

For the record, I will be getting the higher-tier iPhone X when it comes available this fall, but I’d be lying if I said I was happy about what I’ll be paying for it.