Ok If you know me, at some point you have probably asked me what iPhone should I buy or do you have an iPhone to sell me? Buying a new iPhone is most of the time not that fun because there are so many choices and now it is so expensive!! So here is my opinion, take it or leave it, this post will change as I find the best deals on iPhones and if you want to buy from me personally you can always find the phones I have for sale here.
So here we go, you left your phone on the roof of your car and drove off, you dropped it down an elevator shaft, you dropped it off the dock into the bottom of lake, something happened and now you need a new phone. Easiest solution go to AT&T or whoever your carrier is and put a phone on your plan. So what kind of deal is this? Most of the time and again I say this MOST of the time, sometimes there are good deals out there, but most of the time you will pay full price for whatever phone you want and payments for it will be spread out on your bill for however long it takes to help you pay it off. This might be your solution and if you are great with paying full price for a phone then go for it and why not let AT&T front the money and you use the device. At the end, it is paid off and you can sell that phone. The obvious problem here is if you drop this phone or lose this phone you will need to pay it off then start the process all over again. Wait, you say, “I paid for the insurance so I am good”. Again, this is just my experience and I have seen a lot of people who buy iPhones from me or sell iPhones to me. The insurance – the lowest I have seen insurance about $9 a month. If you lose your phone you will pay about $150 to get a “replacement”. This is a used phone that they have received from a company that has fixed the phones. This company is not Apple, it is a third party company that does a pretty fast and quick scan of the phone then gets it out to you. How do they get the phones? I have no idea but they are used phones that have been repaired. I know this because they put stickers on the inside of every phone they fix. I have seen these stickers because most people I know that get one of these phones bring it to me to fix because it is not working correctly.
So let’s say you got the insurance, you break your screen and you think no problem I am protected. You go to the AT&T store (that is a bummer to start with) they greet you “very nice to see you. Oh no you dropped your phone so sorry, lets get you fixed up”. They take your phone, clear it, and send it off. They let you know you will receive a phone in the mail in a couple days. Great, I didn’t really need a phone anyway (please read that with as much sarcasm as you can). Then you get another phone “just like yours” that you have no idea on its history, how many aftermarket parts it has in it and, if you are lucky, it works. If you are not lucky, you go through the process all over again until you get a new one.
Now, let’s take another route you get your new iPhone from Apple directly not through your carrier. You go online and buy apple care now this is getting more and more confusing but it usually cost around $200. If you break your screen within the first 2 years the replacement is only $29. With some plans, if you lose the phone you can get another one for $269. If you drop it in the lake, $99. Your “new phone” will be a refurb but here is the key BY APPLE and they do an excellent job. These phones are as good as new. If you are buying a new phone this is the option I would go with if you’re known for breaking your phone. Why? Because for the first year of an iPhone release, screen prices are very high usually around $250 just for the screen and that is without the labor. After a year, that screen will drop down to less than $50 so that brings me to my main point. Sorry to go on so long.
If you are ok with not having the best phone in the world the day it comes out, buy your iPhones after they have been out at least a year and don’t pay for insurance at all!! Most problems on iPhones can be fixed for under $100 dollars. So after that all that, hopefully you are convinced buying an older iPhone is a great idea and this is where I can save you some money and buy an iPhone you can enjoy without losing your right arm. I often find the best deals on iPhones about 3 generations behind. These phones are, most of the time, running the same software and you can use these phones for about 3 years. When you upgrade you can sell them for about 1/2 of what you bought them for. Not sure how to buy a used iphone? That’s for the next blog post about buying used iPhones. . .
Micheal