Apple Begins Selling Refurbished iPhone 7 and 7 Plus Models (macrumors.com) 75
Apple today has added refurbished iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus models to its online store for the first time in the United States. MacRumors reports: iPhone 7 models are available in all three storage capacities, including 32GB for $499, 128GB for $589, and 256GB for $679, reflecting savings of 10 percent off Apple's current prices for brand new models. All five colors are currently in stock, including Black, Jet Black, Silver, Gold, and Rose Gold. iPhone 7 Plus models with 32GB or 128GB of storage are available for $599 and $689 respectively, which is also 10 percent off. There are no 256GB models in stock. Available colors include Black, Gold, and Rose Gold. Apple says all refurbished iPhone models are thoroughly inspected, tested, cleaned, and repackaged with a new white box and all manuals and accessories. Apple also installs a new battery and replaces the outer shell, making it nearly impossible to distinguish between a refurbished and brand new iPhone. Any refurbished iPhone model comes with Apple's standard one-year warranty effective on the date the device is delivered. The warranty can be extended to up to two years from the original purchase date with AppleCare+, at a cost of $129 for the iPhone 7 and $149 for the iPhone 7 Plus in the United States.
Re: Worse than used car salesmen (Score:2)
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A million bucks for the Brooklyn bridge seems cheap.
Really, what does it do that a 2 year old, $100 on Swappa (iThing or cybernetic something) doesn't?
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Keep your data safe
Yeah but... (Score:2)
Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah but how many write cycles on the flash memory?
Plenty. Even if the phone originally belonged to a teenager who filled the flash up everyday with photos, that wouldn't even be 10% of the flash lifecycle.
If you get a new battery, a screen with no marks or scratches, and all the boogers are wiped off, your refurb will be as good as new. ICs don't "wear out".
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i guess iPhone uses the highest spec then, because the iPhone 3GS in the back of my closet boots up no problem.
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Utter nonsense.
You are confusing the term EOL, which refers to when a manufacturer will stop selling an IC, with how long it is expected to last.
ASICS don't get designed to last 3 years
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CPU life exectency is around 3 years in normal conditions. Ask Intel or AMD, neither will sell you any warranty for longer periods
Warranty period != Life expectancy
Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Plenty. Even if the phone originally belonged to a teenager who filled the flash up everyday with photos, that wouldn't even be 10% of the flash lifecycle.
Many refurbished phones will be phones that were purchased new and returned within 14 days. Can't be sold as new anymore if the phone was used, so they are sold as refurbished.
Imagine if cars could be sold this way. (Score:4)
"Hey, this 2 year old car has only 60,000 miles on the odometer. We replaced the tires, gave it an oil change and shampooed the interior so it's as good as new. Yours for only 90% of the price of a 2018 model."
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Isn't that how second hand car sales work?
(Though the re-sale price isn't as high because cars general have more wear and tear)
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I think that's kind of the point. Taking a car out of the showroom instantly knocks 30% off it's value. Someone is being royally screwed for a $50 discount.
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Your analogy is flawed. This would be like taking an all electric car with 60k miles on its odometer, completely replacing its batteries, and then also replacing the seats, carpeting, and the exterior body. Sure, the dashboard and engine are the same, but for this example it's got an engine designed to run a million miles.
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The outer shell and battery are the primary wear items in a phone. Replace those and you are pretty much as good as new.
They also replace any defective modules, it is cleaned to a like new state and you get a full factory warranty identical to a new product.
I think his analogy is pretty accurate
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They can be. At the very least, many official dealers like Toyota provide dealer-certified pre-owned cars. They cost more than the theoretically same model being sold by individuals, but the higher certainty you get is part of the cost.
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Do you understand that the selling price of the refurbished iPhone 7 isn't 90% of what they originally sold for, much less Apple's 2018 models?
Or that they replaced the entire exterior and the primary wear item, the battery?
Not so quick (Score:2)
Any refurbished iPhone model comes with Apple's standard one-year warranty effective on the date the device is delivered.
Except that the minimum warranty is two years many places, also for refurbished goods, with up to five years redress rights for phones. Depending on your location, the one year warranty is only valid if it offers something above and beyond that.
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10% off? Hahahaha. Apple is one of the best idiot taxes around...
We rightfully make fun of Apple, but they've taken the Veblen good [wikipedia.org] and ran with it like they stole it.
Hear, heaR! (infinitesimal cap lock fail)
The invisible hand (Re:10% off?) (Score:4, Insightful)
Market forces determine prices. This applies even to Apple. If Apple thinks that they can move refurbished products with only a 10% discount then they'd be idiots for going any lower on price.
If you believe buying Apple products is just paying an "idiot tax" then you need to brush up on some basic economics. Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world right now. Maybe all their customers are idiots. If so, then that just means catering to idiots is a genius business plan.
2nd hand market (Score:1)
Here is a marketplace that Apple Inc control 'wholeheartedly'. Not just Off-The-Shelf, but Off-Someone-Elses.
In doing so they have greatly helped create and maintain the 2nd hand depreciation market that almost all other markets and things suffer directly by.
Car markets, for example, are ingrained with 50% drive off the lot problem, sprouted by the car dealerships themselves (This I was told exactly last week when looking for a car) for literally moving the car 1meter from the dealership. This makes the eco
America is a great place Apple knows (Score:3)
Just my 2 cents
"Refurbished" iPhones are exceptionally good (Score:2)
They are effectively a new phone, there's even plastic back on the front to tear off.
That being said,... 10% saving? Just 10? Good lord that's stingy. Cmon 15/20% for goodness sakes, plus it's an older model now.
Yeah, no, no thanks.
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I'm glad they don't, as that directly affects both resale value and the general perception of the overall quality.
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That being said,... 10% saving? Just 10? Good lord that's stingy.
The cheapest iPhone 7 is $649, the cheapest refurbished one is said to be $499, so the savings don't seem to be just 10%, but in this case more like 23%. And all the phones seem to be phones that are still on sale.
Re:"Refurbished" iPhones are exceptionally good (Score:4, Informative)
They've already reduced the price of the iPhone 7 to reflect that it is an older model. The 10% discount is on top of the price reduction.
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If they sell refurbished iPhone 7 for significantly lower price than 8, then what's the point of buying an iPhone 8? I mean seriously, for almost all intents and purposes, the iPhone 6 through 8 are the same phone. If I had an iPhone 6s I don't know why I'd want to upgrade to either 7 or 8 if it wasn't for recently discovered battery issues (I admit, the plain 6 is kind long in the tooth because it has only one 1GB of RAM).
iP6&6S refurbs are good but the iP7/7+ is trou (Score:2)
iP7/7+ are crippled with the same mechanical/physical issues that the iP6+ touch disease is caused by. In the 7/7+ it manifests in a different location (audio chip typically) and makes the phone become exceedingly laggy.
Overall the 7/7+ has not been a good phone for durability, the new alloy used for the chassis does a very good job at resisting damage to itself compared to the original 6/6+ but the consequence of that is that the shock is now being transferred to the PCB and we're seeing a lot of board fa
boycott 'ending in nine' !!! (Score:1)
33 years ago I was an Apple User Group Evangelist. I drank the Kool Aid. Eh, still do mostly. But I'm sorry to see these prices. No, it's not that they are too high or low; I'm not qualified to evaluate that. No, the problem with the prices is that they all end in nine (9).
Retailers end prices with 9 so you will think you are paying less. $599 is less than $600, right? So when the average shopper spends $599, she goes home thinking she paid $500. A real bargain! Forgetting that there was tax, shipping and p
Re:boycott 'ending in nine' !!! (Score:5, Interesting)
Boycott everyone that ends a price in 9 and where do you plan on buying anything?
Talk about a petty grievance. Why not stop buying gasoline that ends in .9 while you are at it.
Walmart didn't invent pricing that ended in a 9, go look at an old Sears ad from 60+ years ago.
Re: boycott 'ending in nine' !!! (Score:2)
Talk about a petty grievance. Why not stop buying gasoline that ends in .9 while you are at it.
Hear, hear; that disingenous tenth-of-a-cent shit needs to stop. (Sorry if I grabbed your poor analogy and ran the other direction with it). ;)
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Sorry, can you point to where I said this was a new thing? I guess you must be one of the stupid shoppers. Keep going to Walmart, you are very welcome there.
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Lots of illiterates at this site. Can't read a short comment and retain any sense of its content. Please point out the part where: "Defends Apple with the same devotion of a radical Muslim" appears in my words.
OK, you are an Apple hater. In your mind nobody has ever benefited by buying or using an Apple product. You probably think of Apple as a criminal organization. Many like you exist on Slashdot. Haters of all sorts. It's not unlike FB, Twitter, Reddit and other places. Better to hate at Slashdot than at
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Well I went over the top too. Sorry about the angry tone.
Hopefully (Score:2)