You're must be joking! Look around, if you look past the bitten apple, there are plenty of perfectly capable devices out there for under $300.
In fact, I see plenty of people who are on the street corners panhandling AND using a smartphone.
A quick Google showed me a $40 smartphone from Walmart. Granted it's probably pretty terrible, but it does go to show that they aren't all priced like luxury toys. If you want a luxury branded phone, you'll pay luxury prices.
Of course you can get a used of refurbished ones for less even Apple. I was referring to new devices. As an example, I use a Motorola Edge plus that I bought new for $400. It does everything my wife's iPhone 15 Pro. The camera quality is slightly lower, but perfectly adequate.
I bought a new iPhone 6 for $200 when the 7-8 were new. Totally happy with it and I used it for 3 years. Apple used to be priced at a premium but that hasn't been true for several years... high-end Android phones cost as much as new iOS devices, and you can get old ones or a SE pretty cheap.