Whether you won it, bought it, or paid for it over time through a carrier promotion, it's still a premium device.

Apple has, to date, made five non-premium phones. One, when the iPhone 5s released, they recalled the iPhone 5 and replaced it with the iPhone 5c, which was an iPhone 5 with a plastic back to indicate you were too poor to buy the latest model. But otherwise, internally, it was still last year's flagship. Two, when the iPhone 6s was out, before the 7, they re-released the iPhone 5s with the guts of the iPhone 6s and called it the iPhone SE. So it was still the iPhone 6s, just with the two-year-old flagship's screen, and (slower) fingerprint reader. Three, the second SE was an iPhone 8 with the guts of an 11. Four, the third SE was the second SE but with 5G. I think this was the "oldest flagship" that Apple put out, and it was still competitive (at least, in performance) with modern Android flagships. And five, the iPhone 16e. The iPhone 16 with only one camera and Apple's "experimental" modem, the C1. (The second-generation, C2, is in the iPhone Air.)

None of those phones were less powerful than the Android flagships released the same year, though they all had less features, like fewer cameras, and the latter four lacked headphone jacks, none of them had memory card slots, etc. And they started at $400, IIRC.

Android phones go a lot cheaper. And that's the point the article makes as well. The cost of ownership is much lower in Android, especially if you buy secondhand and last year's flagship, or especially last year's mid-range.