More and more manufacturers are offering trade-in offers where you can trade in your old phone when you buy a new one. We’ll check whether it’s worth taking advantage of this.
Many cell phone manufacturers offer trade-in programs for exchanging old devices. (Source: Syda_Productions /depositphotos.com)
- Basically, it depends very much on the individual case whether it is worth trading in a particular device.
- The value of your smartphone can vary greatly depending on where you want to trade it in.
- In most cases, selling on eBay is still more worthwhile than taking a trade-in. However, it is worth examining your own case carefully – you can often get a lot more money this way.
If you buy a new smartphone, you only keep the old one in a few cases. Most users decide to sell their old device when buying a new one – after all, this is a relatively quick way to make a lot of money. However, the option of trading in the old device with the manufacturer of the new device when buying it and thus getting a discount on your new smartphone is becoming increasingly popular. But is this process really worth it? We have compared the two.
To test whether it is worth taking part in the trade-in offers, we looked at three manufacturers: Samsung, Google and Xiaomi. Apple also offers a device trade-in, but the company requires a serial number to determine the trade-in value. Unfortunately, we did not have this number available for all of the devices we tested, so we did not consider Apple and its devices.
Whether the trade-in is worthwhile depends on many factors
For the comparison, we have created a scenario: We want to buy the latest model from each manufacturer and exchange a device that is at least two years old. Since all manufacturers have several models to choose from, we decide on the medium-priced model from the respective manufacturer. Our “old devices” are therefore a Samsung Galaxy S22+ 128GB, a Google Pixel 6 128GB and a Xiaomi 12S Pro 5G 256GB.
The results: Not very clear. Only a few trends emerged in comparison. Depending on the manufacturer and the device being traded in, the purchase prices can vary greatly. In general, however, it can be said that it is less worthwhile to trade in the smartphone to the manufacturer than to sell it yourself. For example, new Samsung customers receive 210 dollars for their old Samsung or Xiaomi phone, while the old smartphones are rarely found on classified ads for less than 300 dollars.
The purchase prices at Xiaomi are unusually low – only the company’s own smartphone receives a purchase bonus of over 200 dollars. You get an unusually high price for your old smartphones at Google: If you trade in your old Samsung there, you get a bonus of around 350 dollars, which is the same as the market price. The old Pixel smartphone is worth 309 dollars, and you get around 230 dollars for your old Xiaomi smartphone. This means that Google pays former Xiaomi users more than Xiaomi itself. This is also a trend that is noticeable; only Google pays a fair price for its own smartphones.
Trade-in much easier than private sale
So one thing is clear: Before buying a new smartphone, everyone should check for themselves whether it is worth trading in their old device in, or whether it would be better to sell the smartphone themselves on eBay or in the classifieds. If you don’t do this, you could miss out on several hundred dollars off your new device.
It should be noted, however, that trading in your old smartphone offers a number of advantages over selling it privately. Buyers don’t have to go to the trouble of taking nice photos of the smartphone, uploading one or more ads to the relevant platforms, talking to buyers, etc. Anyone who trades in their smartphone simply has to send it to the manufacturer and will receive the promised discount within two weeks.
In addition, smartphone manufacturers are more tolerant of wear and tear or scratches when it comes to trade-ins. All three manufacturers will give you the full trade-in value if the smartphone is fully functional and not obviously damaged (e.g. broken display). Normal signs of wear and tear are completely irrelevant here. It could be more difficult to get rid of an uncared-for smartphone to a private individual – this is also something to consider.
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