What's the oldest used iPhone worth buying?

[QueBert]

$300 for a 3.5 year old phone... gotta love Apple.

I put an iPhone 4 on Craigslist when the 5s was the latest model. Sold it the same day within 5 hours, and for more than I got for a current gen flagship HTC phone I was selling at the same time. That one took me 5 days to sale. I absolutely <3 Apple when it comes to selling used phones.

 

[omega3]

I'd recommend 5S with the latest OS. The 5 might be too slow. Hope this helps.

 

[dainthomas]

I just bought a 4s for my daughter on ebay for $65. Popped in a tmobile sim and it seems to run everything fine. Only runs 9.3 but I think a lot of apps only require 8.

 

[GoodEnough]

Got him a mint used iPhone 6S for about $350
Will sell the old 5 for $75

 

[GoodEnough]

Can different 6S phone have different OS versions installed?
Does iPhone 6S self-update to latest OS ?
Or does it just come with what it came with?

 

[Ichinisan]

Can different 6S phone have different OS versions installed?
Does iPhone 6S self-update to latest OS ?
Or does it just come with what it came with?

You’ll be nagged to death if you don’t update when a new OS is out. Something like 90%+ of iOS devices run the latest major OS version the device supports. Most of those are even running the latest minor incremental update. Currently, the iPhone 5 (2012) or newer devices will run the latest iOS 10.

The 5 and 5c won’t get iOS 11 when it’s released later this year, but 5s and anything newer will get it.

 

[GoodEnough]

Great easy to force obsolesce then. Old phone forced to run new bloated OS.

 

[boomhower]

Great easy to force obsolesce then. Old phone forced to run new bloated OS.

They do this by severely limiting ram. Gets them an extra dime per unit sold and makes people upgrade faster, gotta love Apple. (and this is from an Apple Fanboy)

 

[Ichinisan]

Great easy to force obsolesce then. Old phone forced to run new bloated OS.

That said, iDevices generally have a much longer useful life than Android devices (considering when the manufacturer stops releasing major updates). If you got an iPad 2, iPhone 4s, or Apple TV at launch (all A5 devices with 512MB RAM), you had an excellent phone that had the latest updates and apps for a very long time. The early 64-bit devices felt a performance crunch due to low RAM capacity and slow storage. iOS 10.3 updated the storage to APFS and should have significant performance improvements, so it shouldn't feel as bad when it has to use the storage to swap what's in RAM.

I expect iDevices with 2GB+ RAM to remain useful for a very long time. Apple has incentive to keep those hand-me-down devices going so they can keep making purchases from iTunes and the App Store.

 

[XSoldier77X]

I' still confused between 5S and 6. If this confusion lasts another month, i might rule out both the options and shift to g5 or 6 maybe.

 

[repoman0]

Got him a mint used iPhone 6S for about $350
Will sell the old 5 for $75

I just did basically the same thing, but went from a 6 to a used 6s. Unfortunately my "mint" 6s came with a crappy third party Chinese screen with terrible colors and battery drain, so I replaced it with a $50 OEM refurb screen. All in all, $330 for the phone, $50 for the screen and I got a $30 refund from the seller for the crappy screen. Somehow sold my 6 for $340.

The 6s is crazy fast next to the 6, which is why I swapped.

 

[Rottie]

iPhone 5C is better I guess

 

[Ichinisan]

iPhone 5C is better I guess

Now is not the time to get a 5 or 5c. iOS 11 will not support it.

For supported devices, iOS 11 nixes 32-bit support. Many apps that haven't been updated in a long time will no longer work. Nixing 32-bit support does mean those 1GB 64-bit devices will have slightly more usable memory. I have a feeling it won't improve multitasking because iOS11 probably uses more memory anyway and removing 32-bit support was necessary to run iOS 11 at all.

 

[Rottie]

Now is not the time to get a 5 or 5c. iOS 11 will not support it.

For supported devices, iOS 11 nixes 32-bit support. Many apps that haven't been updated in a long time will no longer work. Nixing 32-bit support does mean those 1GB 64-bit devices will have slightly more usable memory. I have a feeling it won't improve multitasking because iOS11 probably uses more memory anyway and removing 32-bit support was necessary to run iOS 11 at all.

Oh I didn't know that...

 

[NetGuySC]

If you don;t mind the 4" screen, the IPhone SE is a powerful device that can be found on swappa for $200. It was released in 2016, has the A9 chip and the price will drop even more once the Iphone SE 2 is released next month.

 

[theeedude]

5S