Choosing a Mobile Based on Resale Value?
Let’s face it, choosing a mobile phone is a long way from a life long commitment. In fact the odds are good that you will be using a different one in the next year or two. Which means that choosing functionality now shouldn’t be the only thing on your mind.
Whether you are buying a handset outright, or getting one in a bundle deal as part of a contract, you should not just look at what your phone can get you now, in terms of apps and calls, but what it can get you in the future – specifically what you can sell it for.
Pricing
We know that mobile phone handsets are expensive these days. It’s no surprise, a good smart phone packs in a huge amount of computing hardware, can run powerful games, browse the Internet, change the channel on your TV and much more besides.
That sort of technology does not come cheap, which means that we have to pay for it. Whether that means over the course of a contract, or up front, is entirely up to you.
But what about when you come to upgrade your phone? The phone you had before will still likely have some value. And the more these things are costing, the more we should be looking at selling them on again, rather than simply letting them gather dust at the bottom of a drawer somewhere.
Resale Value
This means that not only should you be looking at what a phone can do now, or what it costs in the present, but also what you can sell it on for when you look to upgrade. Think about it, if the cost of the upgrade is $400, but you have a phone worth $250 already, then selling that on to help fund the upgrade makes perfect sense.
But how should you go about choosing the best mobile for doing so? The good news is that many phones are coming up for sale on the 2nd hand market already, which can be very useful for guiding our purchases.
Did you know, for instance, that the Apple iPhone has afar better resale value than the majority of Android and Blackberry phones? This can make the the iPhone the perfect phone for buying with the knowledge you will put it up for resale further down the line.
I fact, experts say that you can often sell an 18 month old iPhone for as much as 53% of it’s original value. That sort of return marks it as far better than the majority of Android phones. However it is interesting to note the use of the word ‘majority’ there. Not all Android phones are the same.
In fact some keep their resale value very well, more so than the iPhone. A great example is the HTC Wildfire, which can be sold for as much as 86% of it’s original value, making it a very cost effective smart phone purchase indeed.
So whilst you should of course be thinking about current needs and costs, and finding deals on packages with the likes of a Sprint coupons, also make sure that you are thinking about your future needs. Your future self will thank you.
