Oct 22

Buying Refurbished Cell Phones Saves Money

By Chris Samaras Interesting Phone Stuff No Comments »

CellphoneMoneyIn previous articles we’ve talked about why refurbished cell phones are basically brand new, about how buying refurbished is good for the environment, and about how buying refurbished cell phones is a great way to save money, but we’ve never really gone through the actual figures. Below is a break down of what some of the most popular phones on the market cost if you were to buy them in a store compared to what you can get them for by purchasing refurbished. When you actually run the numbers, the average savings are over 50%.

 

New                            Refurbished

Blackberrys

Curve 8310                                     $349.95                        $188.95

Curve 8330                                     $679.99                        $229.89

7100i                                                $379.99                        $39.95

8830 World                                    $549.99                        $119.99

8703e                                               $349.99                        $48.99

7130e                                                $379.99                        $28.99

Pearl 8130                                       $399.99                        $109.99

Flip 8230                                         $679.99                        $174.99

Motorola

Q9c                                                    $499.99                        $129.99

Q                                                        $419.99                        $44.95

LG

Glimmer                                           $549.95                        $139.95

VX8300                                           $199.99                        $69.99

Samsung

Blackjack                                        $499.99                        $89.99

SPH-i830                                       $479.99                        $99.95

HTC

Mogul                                             $649.99                        $139.95

Dash                                                $399.99                        $114.99

T-Mobile

Sidekick LX                                    $399.99                        $129.99

Palm

Treo 650                                         $399.99                        $65.99

Treo 700w                                     $699.99                        $75.99

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Oct 05

New Hydrogen Fuel Cell Charger for Cell Phone Batteries

By Chris Samaras Cell Phone Reviews, Phones In The News No Comments »
Ready for work.

Ready for work.

Some research group in Japan has built a charger for cell phone batteries that uses hydrogen fuel cell technology. They say that once their partners are fully on board, the item will be available for sale at about $30 a piece. The hydrogen fuel itself will be sold in small blue plastic tubes, which will need to be inserted into the charger. Each tube of fuel is expected to cost 30 cents. The spokesmen for the research group feels that the tubes are small enough and inexpensive enough to be sold at convenience stores like 7-Eleven. According to the research group, each tube of fuel will provide a two-hour charge for a cell phone.

My question is why the hell would I need this? Is this supposed to be geared towards the person “on the go” who may run out of cell phone battery in the middle of the day and need an emergency charge? Don’t we already have several options in existence to take care of this, specifically an extra wall charger or a car charger? Granted, they need some sort of outlet, but is that so hard to find? If you know you are someone who is out of the office for extended periods of time, why not buy an additional battery to carry around? They are cheap and small. With this new charger, I’d have to carry the charger around and then go buy tubes of energy each time I want to use the thing. No thanks, the outlet at Macdonald’s is free.

I understand that hydrogen fuel cell technology is environmentally friendly but as opposed to what? Maybe someone can correct me in the comments of this article if I am wrong, but is the electricity that goes through my wall charger and into my battery really bad for the environment? I just don’t understand why companies spend so much time and money coming up with these products. Make a battery and a hydrogen charger for my car so I don’t have to buy gas anymore. That I’d go to 7-11 to buy.

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Oct 01

Newsweek Says Buy Refurbished Cell Phones

By Chris Samaras Interesting Phone Stuff, Phones In The News No Comments »
Refurbished Cell Phones

Refurbished Cell Phones

Newsweek has recently released a video containing facts that support the fact that purchasing refurbished cell phones is a very Green thing to do. Obviously, purchasing second hand anything is good for the environment as it eliminates the demand for new materials to be usurped in order to produce new products, but most people don’t understand how important it is to purchase refurbished cell phones until they actually see the numbers.

According to Newsweeks’s video, eight out of ten people in US own a mobile phone, which means more people in the US have cell phones than passports and Internet access. Newsweek claims that if mobile phone users made up their own country, it would be bigger than the US, China, India, Russia, Mexico, France, and Japan combined. Because the average life of a cell phone before it is replaced is approximately 18 months, there are more than 500 million cell phones in the world right now that will be thrown away. If these phones were recycled into refurbishment programs, we would save the world more than $40 million in copper, $61 million in silver, and $392 million in gold.

The best part about purchasing refurbished cell phones, besides the fact that it helps the environment so much, is that refurbished phones are of the same quality (functionally wise) as a brand new phone. Sure a refurbished phone may have some minor cosmetic scratches on it, but you can save a boat load of money and help the Earth by purchasing refurbished as opposed to new. Most refurbished phones have brand new housing on them anyway, so the majority of refurbished phones look brand new as well. So if you can’t afford to solar panel your house or purchase a Prius, do yourself and the environment a favor and purchase a refurbished phone the next time you need to upgrade.
Mobile Matters on Newsweek

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