Good place to buy a refurbished mobile phone?

August 22, 2023 10:02 PM

Where can I buy a used cellphone that has some quality control/some kind of warranty? For environmental reasons I strongly prefer buying refurbished phones and have generally done fine with Best Buy in that regard. Their selection isn't great right now however. I vaguely prefer Android because that's what I've been using, but the iphone is also fine.

My Moto G is starting to spontaneously turn itself off, and recently needed a full factory reset. Given that I live and die by 2-factor authentication (hi university log-in system) I need a reliable phone!

posted by spamandkimchi to Technology (12 answers total)

Backmarket is where I've been referring folks for previous gen or 2 Apple products who don't want to deal with wading through CL/FB Market. They also carry Android smartphones.
posted by now i'm piste at 10:44 PM on August 22, 2023 [3 favorites]

Swappa
posted by Violet Hour at 11:16 PM on August 22, 2023

For your consideration, generally speaking iphones receive operating system and security updates longer than androids.

Get a refurb directly from Apple or Swappa.
posted by oceano at 12:27 AM on August 23, 2023

Swappa is decent. I've always stuck to individuals selling their newish (1-2 years old) phones rather than refurbished ones from companies that do refurbishing and I have had good experiences. I think people who buy from the companies that sell refurbished there sometimes end up with lemons. Overall the big thing is to make sure that the phone isn't stolen/that the owner doesn't owe money on it, which Swappa guarantees, but I have also done it by plugging the IMEI number of a phone I'm planning to buy into various sites myself. I successfully bought a newish iphone from Mercari that way - seller listed the IMEI number and the phone was less than a year old, thus still under Apple warranty so I felt safe.

I switched to iphones several years ago for the reasons mentioned by oceano above.
posted by needs more cowbell at 3:24 AM on August 23, 2023

My method is to call a bunch of local phone repair shops and find out which ones have the best selection of used phones + the best-sounding service. This method has served me well.

Also: if you end up with a phone that doesn't do well, the phone repair shop is near you and you can probably get it fixed or exchanged while you wait, same day.

Also: you can hold and test the phone before you buy it.
posted by amtho at 3:57 AM on August 23, 2023

Seconding Apple Refurb. You are pretty much getting a whole new phone, they swap screens and batteries. You also get a full one year warranty like a new unit, and can purchase AppleCare+ if you want. No funny business about buying a phone locked by someone else.

iPhone 15 is coming so this looks like a good time to score a 12.
posted by JoeZydeco at 5:29 AM on August 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Seconding backmarket.com. I bought my last two Samsung Galaxy phones from there, and I was very happy with the prices, quality, and shipping speed.
posted by ananci at 5:31 AM on August 23, 2023

You don't say where you are. I have had a good experience buying a used iPhone 8 from Envirofone and would definitely use them again.
posted by altolinguistic at 5:59 AM on August 23, 2023

Our household has bought our last several (4?) phones through swappa and it has gone perfectly in each case, and we intend to keep doing that.
posted by fritley at 6:44 AM on August 23, 2023

I got the iPhone SE I’ve been using for the last three years from Gazelle, they have a 30-day return policy and certify their phones.

https://buy.gazelle.com/collections/cell-phones

(Sorry, link dialog isn’t working for me on iOS Firefox)
posted by momus_window at 7:44 AM on August 23, 2023

The used iPhone SE I bought on Swappa lost its ability to connect to Wi-fi as soon as it was too late for me to return it. It was a huge waste of money. I will never buy a used phone on Swappa again. No refurbs except for Apple refurbished, ever again.
posted by metonym at 10:59 AM on August 23, 2023

Amazon is evil but easy. I'm on my third renewed Android from them and all three have been great.
posted by mygothlaundry at 12:43 PM on August 23, 2023