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You told us: Here’s what you do with your old phone when you get a new one
June 04, 2025
Upgrading to a new phone is always an exciting experience, as you go through the honeymoon period of enjoying a shiny, new device. It’s especially enjoyable if you haven’t upgraded in a few years, as the differences between the old phone and new device can be stark in terms of performance, battery life, and more.
But what do you do with your trusty old device once you’ve upgraded? Do you repurpose it or do you keep it as a backup phone? Do you trade your device in or give it to loved ones? We posed this question to readers a few days ago and here’s how you voted.
What do you do with your old phone when you’ve upgraded?
Weposted the pollon March 1, and a grand total of 3,992 votes were cast as of writing. The most popular option was keeping it as a secondary or backup phone, with almost 40% of respondents choosing this.
The second-most popular option (at 30.2%) was selling or trading it in, and it’s easy to understand why. The likes ofSamsungandAppleoffer great trade-in deals when upgrading, while selling the phone outright means you get a fair chunk of change to spend on whatever you want. Rounding out the top three choices was giving the old phone to a loved one, with 19.6% of polled readers doing so.
Related reading:Selling a used phone — do’s and don’ts
Just 7.4% said they repurpose their old phone. There are loads of uses for an old phone, such as a smart alarm clock,emulationmachine, a smart picture frame, and more. Nevertheless, it seems like mostAndroid Authorityreaders would rather get rid of their old phone or keep it in storage than repurpose it. Finally, 3.5% of polled readers voted “other” as their choice.
It’s also interesting to note that more people voted to get rid of their phone somehow (49.8%) than for keeping it in some capacity (46.7%).
Thanks for voting in this poll and for leaving comments, it’s always appreciated. you may share your thoughts on the topic via the comments section below.
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