Not buying new phones from the carrier at full price anymore

We recently just had Black Friday sales, in which I didn’t go to a physical store to partake, but took advantage of some online sales for Christmas gifts and other things we’ve waited on purchasing. During these sales I looked through some of the electronic sales — I enjoy gadgets. While looking through those sales I noticed some really good deals on cell phones. I currently use the iPhone 7s Plus, but a bad phone, but I am keeping my eye out for my next phone. If you go to eBay or Amazon you can find phones from last year that are just as good as this years models. Even after Black Friday I’m still finding some great prices.

Do you need the latest and greatest?

Ummm, more than likely not. Unless you like all these specs and features that come with these new phones then no. Some years ago I would have said you should aim for the best phone; however, now these mid-tier or last years top phones are lower priced and offer great performance and features.

Price

The price is my biggest concern. We’re pretty much at the point where we don’t need to spend a ton of money for a good cell phone experience; a ton being $800+. You can pay half the price for the top tier cell phones for more than adequate features and experience. If you can wait for a couple months you can typically find the phone you want without having to sign a contract paying for the full price of a smart phone. Sometimes, you can find the smart phone you want for a much cheaper price by bypassing your cell phone carrier and going straight to eBay or Amazon and getting the phone you want.

Features

Everyone is different and the features I look for aren’t necessarily what you’re looking for; nevertheless, I think what I want is common. The things I want in a smart phone are: battery, performance, pretty good rear camera, and fingerprint reader. That list isn’t in any particular order. I don’t care that much about a headphone jack because when I workout I have Bluetooth headphones as I don’t want any cables getting in my way.

What to buy?

With all of that said, the phones that I found online for a great price and are really good phones are: Pixel XL (2016) (~$380), Essential Phone (~$400), iPhone 7 (~$650), OnePlus 5T (~$500), and a bunch of others. The phones I listed are just the ones I looked at because they’re phones I’d want to buy, there’s other phones like Samsung S8 (~$680) that I’d never buy but are great values. Again, these are phones that I found new on eBay or Amazon, I’m sure you can find some others that are pre-owned for a little better pricing.