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spinedoc77

macrumors G4
Original poster
Jun 11, 2009
11,488
5,414
For anyone that has the AT&T Next upgrade plan I had a question. When you trade your old phone in does the balance revert to the full price of the new phone? For example I bought the Note 4 for $825, as of today I owe $465 and am eligible to hand in my device and get a new one. So if I hand in my Note 4 and lets say pick up a Note 5 will my new balance be $825(assuming the Note 5 is $825)? Or is my new balance the $465 I would carry over.

I'm just trying to figure out if I want to pay off my Note 4 and just buy the Note 5 outright, or if it makes more sense to just continue the Next plan.


Edit: The reason I ask is because some customer service rep specifically told me tonight if I hand my phone in and get a new one under Next my balance would remain at $465, which seemed much too good to be true. From reading it seems like I trade it in, then start a completely new Next plan at whatever price the new phone has.
 
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For anyone that has the AT&T Next upgrade plan I had a question. When you trade your old phone in does the balance revert to the full price of the new phone? For example I bought the Note 4 for $825, as of today I owe $465 and am eligible to hand in my device and get a new one. So if I hand in my Note 4 and lets say pick up a Note 5 will my new balance be $825(assuming the Note 5 is $825)? Or is my new balance the $465 I would carry over.

I'm just trying to figure out if I want to pay off my Note 4 and just buy the Note 5 outright, or if it makes more sense to just continue the Next plan.


Edit: The reason I ask is because some customer service rep specifically told me tonight if I hand my phone in and get a new one under Next my balance would remain at $465, which seemed much too good to be true. From reading it seems like I trade it in, then start a completely new Next plan at whatever price the new phone has.

While I am an AT&T customer and have the benefits of Next on all of our Mobile Share family plan, I cannot offer first hand experience because I buy any new devices outright, if not bringing it to the plan myself from a third party sale. That being said, I believe your latter statement is correct as, it's for that reason specifically when I switched over to Next pricing that I chose to pay for devices outright. If you trade in the phone after a year, you've basically leased the device where as keeping it too completion of payments allows you to keep the phone outright. I prefer to own my devices so that I can recoup some of the cost via sale.
 
From my understanding, when you hand your phone in it pays off your current balance ($465) and then the new phone would start a new balance ($825).
 
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