What I have done to save money when getting a new phone is to get a new phone but a model with less features. I don't use all the features on the phone as it is so why pay a premium for more unwanted features? My phone is on pre-paid contract so I pay $30 (we pay in rands in South Africa, but thought I would spare everyone the conversion checker) a month for two years and in return I get $30 airtime a month, a Nokia Lumina 520 and a $300 gift card to Game (our local equivalent of Wallmart). I renew my contract every second December and then I use the gift card to buy present so it is a double score
Um, I would have to disagree. I prefer buying the most expensive, feature loaded device on the mark right now, because it tends to have the the maximum potential to be current and usable for a long period of time. Sometimes trying to get a good deal ends up costing more
Does it really cost you money or take away from your earning potential to get a Nokia instead of an iPhone for instance? I think we focus to much on the nice to have and not enough on what we actually need and that ends up costing us money.
You will definitely save more money buying an old model. I think some stores will go as far as to decrease the price of the older models in order to make room for the newer models. This is when timing becomes important so you don't lose out on a good deal. People think that the only time to save on electonics is black Friday but that is not true if you look for price drops on electronics throughout the year.
I prefer to buy older, yes. I will buy new if it is worth it, if it is just petty upgrades that I won't use then I don't care. It's a simple system and I love it.
As it pertains to smartphones, I almost always buy a device that's one or two years old. The savings are often significant and often in the 70% off range, exception being iPhones. I just can't wrap my head around buying a brand new phone and paying top dollar knowing that a year later it'll be so much cheaper. On top of that, I feel like hardware has really exceeded the level at which the software currently is on a lot of these devices -- an older model will often still run super fast and work with all the latest games.
