Source: Andrew Martonik / Android Central
What you need to know
- A report from BankMyCell reveals that Android flagship phones lose value nearly twice as fast as iPhones in the first year.
- The top three brands that are the worst at retaining value are Motorola, LG, and Google.
- The top five brands best at retaining value are Apple, Nokia, Sony, HTC, and Samsung.
Over the past few years, trading in or selling your current phone when it comes time to upgrade has become increasingly popular. That should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen the ever-rising cost of the typical flagship these days. However, not all phones or phone brands lose their value equally.
Recently, BankMyCell published results after monitoring nearly 300 phones for resale values from multiple vendors in 2019. First, the bad news, on average Android flagship phones lose value almost twice as fast as iPhones. The report showed that, on average, an iPhone loses 23.45% of its value in the first year, while the average Android flagship phone loses 45.18% in the same time frame. That puts it on par with the iPhone's losses after two years at 45.46%. And unfortunately, by year two, the average Android flagship has lost 71.41% of its original value.
Source: BankMyCell
It only gets worse for budget Android smartphones with a price of $350 or less. According to the report, budget phones from Samsung, LG, Motorola, and Google depreciated 48.65% in 2019. For example, the Motorola One was released in October 2018 with a price of $349, but by December 2019, it was only selling for $43 used.
The brands that are the worst at retaining value in 2019 are as follows, Motorola which lost 59.41%, LG losing 56.76%, and Google which depreciated 51.68%. However, the phone that lost the most value of 2019 wasn't made by any of these three brands. That honor goes to Samsung, which saw the Galaxy S10+ drop $373 in value over the year. Surprisingly, the Galaxy S9 lost less value in 2019, only dropping $109 for a 37.47% loss.
Besides Apple, the top five best brands at retaining value might surprise you. Taking the number two slot was Nokia with a 27.68% loss, followed by Sony with 31.30%, then HTC with 32.01%, and finally with a loss of 34.42% was Samsung at number five.
Source: BankMyCell
If you're looking for something positive to take away from BankMyCell's report, think of it this way, as an Android user, you can pick up a great flagship made within the past two years for a fantastic price. However, if you're looking to invest in a phone with the best trade-in value, Android phones are riskier. Even one of Samsung's latest flagships can drop significantly in value in only one year.
Best Places to Buy or Sell a Used Phone in 2020
We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.
Review: 4 months later, the Nest Audio is still a smart speaker champ
About four months after its release, the Google Nest Audio is still standing strong as one of the best smart speakers currently available. If you haven't picked one up yet, now's a great time to do so.
Why don't we see any more pop-up selfie cameras?
Pop-up selfie cameras defined 2019 phones, but the trend fizzled out shortly thereafter. Here's why you don't see many phones with pop-up selfie cameras anymore.
Jetpack Compose will breathe new life into tablet and big-screen apps
Tired of apps looking really bad and sometimes not working on your big screen devices? This new tool from Google can help developers fix things!
Expand the Note 10+ storage with one of these microSD cards
Samsung's Galaxy Note 10+ is almost two years old, but it's still a solid device. Along with the base internal storage of 256GB, it includes a microSD card slot for adding more. We've compiled a list of the best microSD cards for your new Galaxy Note 10+.