HOW TO: Trade in Your Old iPhone

One of the few downsides of a well-made product like theiPhone — perhaps the only one — is that it just doesn’t die quickly enough.

It would be nice if your iPhone died just as the new iPhonewas being announced, but that’s probably not the case. The good news is if you can’t bring yourself to wait for your current iPhone’s demise, then there are ways to trade your old one in for cash or gift cards — or maybe just rid yourself of it in an environmentally friendly way.

If you’d like to receive cash for your old iPhone — likely the most popular option — you can, of course, just go on eBay or Craigslist and try your luck there. But if you’re looking for something easier, there are some sites out there that will give you cash on a trade-in. For instance, Gazelle will take that old iPhone off your hands for anywhere between $20 (for the 8GB iPhone 2G) to $284 for a 32 GB iPhone 4. Another option is NextWorth, a Gazelle competitor.

To try either of those options, just go online and tell the sites what kind of iPhone you have and what condition it’s in. Then you ship your phone to them and it’s “hand evaluated” to make sure everything matches your claims. Then they send you a check, Amazon gift card or a payment via PayPal.

Though there are some smaller competitors, Gazelle and NextWorth are the two big players in the electronics game, though Walmart and NewEgg both have trade-in services powered by Gazelle. Amazon also now offers store credit in exchange for old electronics.

Finally, you may be one of those people who can’t be bothered to get money for your iPhone. In that case, Mr. Moneybags, you can just send your iPhone back to Apple and have it recycled. (Gazelle and NextWorth will also take your old iPhone and recycle it.)

If you do care about money, then the time to rid yourself of your iPhone is now. As the chart below shows, older models lose their value quickly after a new one is announced. It might be a good idea to send your old friend packing now that Apple has finished its announcement.

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