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I was a child in the 2010s and have admired apple products up until about the iPhone X, but I still very much love old apple tech and I've been thinking every now and then about starting a little collection of iPhones I find very cool.
I wanted to make this post because I find it very interesting how iPhones are priced on eBay: 1st gen is pricey (for obvious reasons), 3g-7 is dirt cheap if you get them without the box, 8 depends on if you're looking at the businesses or the people just selling their old stuff, and then X is always over £50, which considering it was memed back in 2017 on how it was almost £1000, makes sense. Newer ones like the 13 are about the same price as a new budget android phone.
I find it very interesting as I assumed for ages that iPhones would hold onto their value well due to their status in smartphone history, but no not really. For a quick reference, I looked up the samsung galaxy A3 2017 version on eBay to see how that's priced, and they're under £50 too, like the iPhone 5s. Pretty interesting considering how hyped up the iPhone 5 was at launch and how the galaxy there was just some budget phone samsung put out for people who don't know or care to know much about smartphones.
Is there a reason why old iPhones are so cheap? Is it just due to them being too old to feesibly use as daily drivers nowadays so it's a case of supply and demand? I mean, I'm not complaining. I'd love to get my hands on these old phones that I was too young to use when they were at their peak and just mess around with them. Especially the iPhone 5, because it has iOS 6 and I love it's build. Might even pick up an iPhone X just because I have nostalgia from 9 year old me making fun of it in the playground.
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Leoneee
It's probably because the main reason people pick iPhone over other brands is to fit in/flex wealth. A lot of Apple users upgrade yearly so it's quite easy to get newer models second hand, leaving very little practical use in buying older models.
It's interesting though because Apple's older products hold up really well, so they actually should be worth way more than people sell them for, but luckily there's high supply and low demand. I used the 7 from release up until November last year and I only needed to replace the battery and port once. I'm glad this is something that hasn't been scalped yet because I desperately want a 5.
Designer items are weird cause they're (supposed to be) high quality and very desirable, but all that gets wasted like 2 years down the line when the next set is trendy, leaving you with a load of high quality items that nobody wants anymore.
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DeerCrocoDog
collecting iphones sounds super cool! as to why they're cheap, i can only guess thats it results from the hyper consumerist culture that iphone has made around their products (heavy marketing for the newest and best every year instead of longterm support) and also the fact that older iphones are increasingly becoming obsolete due to apple no longer providing an increasing number of older phones with the new IOS updates.