You might not be aware of it, but your old
iPhone is worth a considerable sum of money. Some questionably honest businesses are even making a profit by buying up used first generation
iPhones from unsuspecting American customers and reselling them at a hefty profit. One such shop was passing around fliers outside of an Apple retail outlet offering the full price of a
3G upgrade ($199 for an 8 GB, $299 for a 16 GB) for your old phone.
The Web site for
FreeiPhoneSwap claims to "recycle" the old iPhones in an environmentally-friendly way. By which, of course, they mean unlock and resell at surprisingly high prices to customers overseas.
Although the new iPhone is available in many countries, it is still unavailable to some people in countries such as India or China where it is not sold officially by any carriers (though Hong Kong, rather than all of China, and India, are on
Apple's new "Coming Soon" list). These folks are still left out of the multi-touch fun and some don't want to tie themselves to an exclusive iPhone carrier -- such as
AT&T in the U.S. For these people, the only option is an unlocked iPhone, which will work on any compatible
EDGE or
GSM network (
T-Mobile for example, but not
Verizon or
Sprint).
So if you're thinking of selling your old iPhone, make sure not to jump at that seemingly great deal to trade in your old iPhone for a new one -- unlocked 8-gigabyte (GB)
first-generation iPhones are fetching bids of over $500 on eBay. You could buy two new iPhones for that price. [Source:
NY Times]
