My iPhone upgrade plan

[ToyotaGuy23]

Recently, I have had some great luck with my phones and AT&T plans, so I thought I would share. Sorry if this is a repost.

I stopped into a Radio Shack for a set of $2 wire clips, and somehow the subject of the iPhone came up. I had no idea that I could trade in my phone with them.

My wife's 8GB iPhone 3G was purchased at AT&T right after the 3GS launch for $99. After 2 years of use, several scratches, two large cracks in the back, and a loose home button, Radio Shack gave me $125 toward a 16GB iPhone 4 upgrade. So that was pretty awesome.

My 16GB 3GS is in even worse shape than hers; it has a small crack and a 2" scratch in the screen. The current trade in is at $185 towards an iPhone 4 upgrade. So that leaves me with an iPhone 4 for only 15 bucks.

Also, I learned that there is an early upgrade option as soon as 6 months. So worst case scenario, if I upgrade to an iPhone 4, and the 5 is something that I just have to have, it will cost me $450 (at 6 months) but I can sell my phone privately and it won't be too bad of a financial hit.

What do you guys think about it?

Edit: I originally posted in the wrong section. Sorry.

 

[ACHAMED]

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What I do is every year before wwdc, I sell my iPhone for what its worth (average around $500) then I just use my back up till the new one comes out, then I buy the new one for 200 and have around 300 in my pocket.

 

[victorvu]

I think when iphone 5, which design really hypes people up, comes out, price & demand of iphone 4 will gradually decrease. but then, it's well-worthed months of your iphone 4 usage go ahead and grab that iphone4 you craved for.

 

[vincenz]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

What I do is every year before wwdc, I sell my iPhone for what its worth (average around $500) then I just use my back up till the new one comes out, then I buy the new one for 200 and have around 300 in my pocket.

I don't know where you're located where you can sell the previous year's iPhone for $500 right before the new one comes out, but I'd sure like to live there.

 

[TheyCallMeSaint]

I don't know where you're located where you can sell the previous year's iPhone for $500 right before the new one comes out, but I'd sure like to live there.

Actually, if you sell it as Jailbroken and Unlocked, it goes for insane amounts of money. I think I remember one guy saying he sold his unlocked 3GS for $650 after the i4 came out.

 

[gdjsnyder]

I don't know where you're located where you can sell the previous year's iPhone for $500 right before the new one comes out, but I'd sure like to live there.

The lowest I have ever received for an old iPhone (after a new one is announced) had been above $450. Mind you, I don't sell mine until I have the new one, so I usually launch the day of or after launch day. I got $495 for my 3Gs on June 26th.