Refurbished iPhones are a huge market – and it’s not hard to see why – but after a certain point, they’re a big risk to buy. Here’s what to consider when buying a refurbished iPhone.
Ethical disclaimer: This article isn’t (as many on this topic are) sponsored by any refurbished phone company. The reasons why should become apparent rather quickly, but I figure it’s worth mentioning upfront. For more on ART’s general ethical disclosure policy, click here.
One of the smaller news stories of the week that caught my eye was the announcement that Apple had added a couple of iPhone models to its “vintage” list of Apple products – specifically, the iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 8 lineup of models.
If you’re not au fait with Apple’s terminology, an iPhone (or any other Apple product) becomes “Vintage” once it’s no longer been sold by Apple for five years.
Vintage does not mean you can take it on Antiques Roadshow; instead, it indicates a period of time in which Apple will still offer repairs for products (for money), but only if those products happen to have available parts – which is typically going to mean that somebody else has traded in a similar model that was junked for parts through Apple’s not-always-brilliant trade-in system.
Also read:
Apple Australia’s iPad Trade-Ins are meant to be easy… but they’re not.
After a further two years – so that’s 7 years after it’s been removed from sale by Apple, not always the same thing as having no new stock on third party store shelves – Apple products become “Obsolete”, which is exactly what you might think it is.
Take an obsolete product into an Apple Store and they’ll likely smile nicely at you, offer to recycle it and try to sell you a brand new device instead. It’s what they do.
Side note: Apple’s obsolete product list makes for interesting historical reading, though it’s also not entirely accurate. Apple lists products such as the Apple Lisa or Apple II as obsolete Macs. They’re not Macs and never really were… but I digress.
The news that the iPhone 8 series is now vintage means that it’s living on borrowed time, and this got me thinking about the refurbished phone market.
It’s not a surprise that iPhones dominate the refurbished phone market; Apple’s iPhones are still seen as highly desirable items in their own right, and Apple’s price points are not, shall we say, inexpensive.
Also read:
Apple iPhone 16e review
As such, buying a refurbished iPhone can have some obvious appeal; the cachet of an iPhone and some of its power for a reduced price.
That’s the offer that refurbished phone sellers make in essence.
So I did some digging and researching, and yep, you totally can still buy refurbished iPhone 8 models. Pricing appears to vary depending on condition and storage capacity as you might expect, with cheaper models selling at around $180 up to around $360.
Side note: Apple does NOT sell refurbished iPhone models in Australia at all. You’re always dealing with a third party. Yes, I know, in some markets (most notably the US) it does offer refurb iPhones, but not here. Apple Australia’s refurbished sale page offers refurbished Macs, iPads, Watches, AirPods (eww)… but not iPhones.
It never has done locally, and while Apple Australia’s never said anything on the record to me about this, I suspect it’s the combination of Australian consumer law and not wanting to eat its own profitable new iPhone lunch at play. If a reseller tells you it’s selling an “Apple refurbished” iPhone… it’s lying to you.
$180 for an iPhone 8 certainly is cheaper than the entry level price of an iPhone 16e at $999, so I can see the appeal… but you read the headline, you know I’m going to say don’t buy it. But why not?
Fundamentally for three reasons. Firstly, there’s that vintage designation. Apple isn’t saying it won’t repair these models – and of course third party repairers exist – but it is saying that it’s 100% dependent on parts being available, which could mean that you’re either not able to get a first party repair, or you may have to wait some time for parts to become available.
Being vintage also means that you’ve got two years, strict, before it’s obsolete, and then when any problems occur you’re likely on your own.
Secondly – and this is more broadly across the whole field of refurbished phones, honestly – there’s the question of existing wear and tear.
Think once. Think twice. Think “Don’t hit your iPhone with a hammer”.
That $180 iPhone 8 isn’t brand new out of the box, and odds are at that price that it’s likely lived a hard life and may not have been “refurbished” all that much beyond having a polishing cloth run over it.
That might not be true for a $360 model, which you’d expect to be in better condition for the same storage size – but there are few total guarantees, and there’s also no “standard” for what a refurbished phone at a specific grade might mean. Sure, you can expect an “A” grade refurbished iPhone should look a touch better than a “C” grade one, but it’s not like Apple (or anyone else) publishes an ISO standard for this kind of thing.
Then there’s the question of software support. It feels… shall we say… unlikely… that refurbished iPhone sellers will tell you that the iPhone 8 lineup doesn’t run the current version of iOS, having finished up with iOS 16. That’s maybe not an issue to you if you’re not fussed about services like Apple Intelligence, but the bigger issue here is one of security and app compatibility.
Older iOS versions are by and large abandoned iOS versions, which means when security issues arise, they’re not going to be patched, which makes using these older models risky endeavours.
This can also tie into app compatibility, with some apps being built around newer iOS versions, or stated as only compatible with them.
There are of course billions of iOS apps, and maybe the apps you want won’t be hit by this – but there are no guarantees at all, and an iPhone that won’t do what you want it to isn’t an iPhone worth owning in my view.
What about buying newer refurbished iPhones?
I would still advise caution, though clearly some of the issues I’ve highlighted above do not entirely apply.
Let’s take the example of the iPhone 12 – already an older model, one that Apple no longer sells, though depending on the model its vintage status varies quite a bit, because Apple culled (for example) its Pro and Pro Max variants way before it killed off the vanilla version.
You’re looking at roughly anywhere between $500-700 for those models, and they should have less wear and tear (you’d hope) as well as fresher batteries on board as well.
They’re less of a risky buy, but I’d still veer on the side of caution here. While Australian consumer law offers some protections, and you should get a smaller “warranty” from refurbished phone resellers, quite how those are managed can vary; you might be looking at posting your phone off for appraisal and repair if something goes wrong, because it’s not like the warranty will be honoured at an Apple store or through an Apple certified reseller/repairer!
You also start to inch ever closer to the current low end of current iPhone pricing; while I do have some issues with the value proposition of the iPhone 16e relative to the entry level iPhone 16, if I’m comparing an iPhone 12 to an iPhone 16, well, the differences are stark – and not in favour of the iPhone 12 in terms of processing power or even battery life when new, let alone for a phone that’s a year or up to nearly four years old.
What about buying refurbished Android phones?
There is a market here, but even moreso I’d suggest shopping around and considering your options, because unlike the iPhone market, the reality for Android phone pricing is that it falls, and often very, very fast.
I’ll give you just one example, again from the last week. Late last year, I reviewed the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE, a particularly nice low high-end phone that originally retailed for $1,099.
This week while researching phone prices for a review, I noticed that right now it can be had for around $750, a hefty drop of $349 from its original asking price.
Obviously, it’s much, MUCH better value at that price – here, have an Amazon affiliate link for it at that price (at the time of writing, ethically I disclose that I may earn a small commission through this, something’s got to keep the lights on, etc…)
The point here wasn’t to sell a specific link per se, but more to show how Android prices drop quickly for many units, which makes the “refurbished” market often pretty poor value.
Most refurbished phone sellers will pitch on the “discount” you’re getting from the original RRP – but when the actual market price is hundreds of dollars less, they’re not exactly bargains any more.
tldr version; be very wary when buying “refurbished” or “renewed” phones, because they’re often not the bargains they might first seem to be.
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