Stop babying your phone for a resale value that will never come
What do you think about the resale value of your smartphone? I know for some people it’s something they’re a little obsessed with. After all, you just paid hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for a new phone, and you want it to stay in pristine condition until the day you’re done with it.
To this end, people pack their phones with thick, ugly screen protectors and cases. Hiding all the goodness they spent that money on in the first place. But if you look at the whole concept of a phone’s resale value, I think whatever the logic behind this obsession is, it no longer holds water. If ever that’s the case.
Resale Value Is A Myth Most People Will Never Profit On
It’s a promise rarely kept
The importance of resale value often depends on how quickly you get rid of your phone and buy a new one. If you follow a two-year phone replacement cycle, you can probably still fetch a decent amount of money on the second-hand market.
However, phones have been useful for much longer. There’s less incentive to upgrade them as quickly. This way, the value of your phone is redirected towards the actual use you get from it. If a modern smartphone does the job to the point where its resale value is zero, then its resale value doesn’t matter.
If you plan to replace your phone only when you need it rather than want it, don’t worry about resale value. Use it and enjoy it.
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Depreciation is brutal no matter what you buy
A phone is not an investment
If you thought new car depreciation was bad, wait until you try to sell a flagship phone two years after you bought it! Things are only worth what people are willing to pay for them, and in my experience, even getting a mint-condition flagship phone for 50% of its launch price will only get you dozens of extremely low offers.
This is why over the years so many of my phones have simply been passed down to family members, or I’ve simply kept them as a backup in case my current phone dies, gets stolen, or breaks.
Depreciation is certainly felt the most for the most expensive phones, but it affects all phones, in all price brackets. For mid-range or entry-level phones, what you would get for reselling it may not even be worth the time you have to spend facilitating that sale. It might make more sense to trade it in, if there is a trade-in program for your device. Sure, trade-in offers for store credit are still a scam, but at least they save time and you don’t have to close the deal from your trunk in an empty parking lot.
Optimizing for resale makes your experience worse
Who are you doing this for?
Look how good these phones look, naked.
Unless you have a genuine functional reason to do so, monitoring your phone and covering it with security gear only makes your experience worse. So you have a phone with the latest glass technology, tougher than ever, glare-free, fingerprint-free, vibrant colors on the screen, and then you stick a $15 piece of tempered glass on it?
A thin body in titanium and glass, or textured polycarb, crafted by engineers for an incredible feel in your hands? No. $10 silicone rubber is what you want. Because what if the following Does the person who owns this phone want to pay you less due to slight wear and tear? Who will think of their needs?
Use your phone like you’ll never sell it (because you probably won’t)
Remove the packaging from your Ferrari seats
I think it’s healthier to think about your phone not in terms of what it will be worth if you decide to sell it one day, but in terms of the value it can provide you while you’re using it. You paid for this screen, you paid for this design and this case, it’s your battery that takes the hits. Why subsidize the needs of a stranger?
Now, if you’re worried about accidents leading to repairs you can’t afford, that’s a perfectly legitimate reason to monitor your phone or put a case on it. Personally, my smartphone is insured against theft or breakage, so if I accidentally drop it and break the screen, I’m covered.
By the way, just because your phone is in a case doesn’t mean it won’t break if dropped, but my insurance covers the phone whether it’s in a case or not. I’m just saying.
Regardless, I’m not recommending anyone be reckless, I just don’t want you to end up paying for the pleasure of something and never actually getting the pleasure you paid for. It’s much worse than one day having a little less money for your phone.
