What Is a Refurbished Phone, Exactly?

For when you need a new phone, but also don’t want to go broke…

This post is presented in partnership with Boost Mobile. 

Ready to kick off the holidays with a new iPhone or Samsung Galaxy? Don’t have the funds to make it happen?

You’ll be glad to know there’s such as a thing as 'refurbished' phones, which give secondhand phones a new life. It basically affords you the chance to buy top-of-the-line devices at super low prices.

Plus, buying refurbished phones helps the environment.

That’s a win-win-win scenario. Three wins! They said it couldn’t be done!

Who does this, and how do they even 'refurbish' a phone?

Well, not everyone does it in an 'official' manner (such as certain sellers on eBay, Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace), so you’ll need to conduct some research before buying, and always check the fine print. But there are indeed legitimate companies out there that source secondhand phones, checking with police databases to make sure they’re not been lost or stolen, and confirming that they’re Australian compliant. (Usually, these secondhand phones have been traded-in.)

Boost Mobile, for example, partners with Alegre, an organisation that does all of the above, and also conducts a 72-point check to make sure the "gently used" phone is authentic and performs at a high standard. This means ensuring the ports, camera, buttons, fingerprint ID, vibration, network and Wi-Fi are all up to snuff.

Do refurbished phones come with a warranty?

Not always, though there are always the guarantees laid out by Australian Consumer Law that retailers have to respect. Boost Mobile offers a 12-month warranty, at least (not covering cracked screens, water damage, unauthorised repairs or tampered software). However, if you’re keeping off the grid and buying "unofficially", or via a trading website, you’re not going to be protected with a warranty, so stay sharp out there.

How much cheaper are these things anyway?

That really depends. Boost Mobile has iPhone 8s from $589, compared to $779 on the Apple site. A Samsung Galaxy S9 is also going for $499, while they start at $1,199 brand new. There are cheaper options as well, but given how prices can change (depending on incoming models) the only thing we can say for sure is: officially refurbed devices will always be cheaper than brand new, and not by a little.

And they help the environment?

Turns out, they do!

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, electronic waste (or "e-waste", made up of mobile phones, TVs, computers and other recent technologies) is growing rapidly. In fact, it’s growing at three times the rate of general waste in Australia, with unloved mobile phones most responsible for this giant trash heap.

A report from 2017 even found that only eight per cent of Aussies recycle their phones, despite three-quarters of Australians knowing they can do so.

So, don’t just sit on your old device or chuck it in the bin for it to rot with its smartphone brothers and sisters in a landfill somewhere. Donate it to an e-waste collection organisation, which can help transform the phone into new products for resale, or, as in the case of this article, see it refurbished into a brand spanking new phone for someone else to enjoy. Similarly, instead of contributing to additional phone production, buy a refurbished phone and tell your friends to do the same. You’re helping mother Earth, getting an awesome new device and saving hundreds of dollars, all at the same time.

Header Image: pixelfit/E+ via Getty Images