Refurbished cell phones get a little smarter

Author JoeDigital

When AT&T recently offered refurbished 8-gigabyte iPhone 3Gs for $99, news of the deal eclipsed another major iPhone announcement, that Wal-Mart is now stocking the hottest smartphone in America.

If you can get a refurbished iPhone for $99, are good deals in the offing for other popular smartphones, like the BlackBerry Storm and the Google G1? They may be if enough consumers decide to return their multi-functional gizmos within 30 days, making those phones eligible to be refurbished and re-sold by wireless carriers.

“As more and more phones become smartphones, more capable and more feature-rich, we’re likely to see the number of refurbished phones going up because of returns,” said Kevin Burden, ABI Research’s mobile devices research director. “Some phones may not meet the expectations of buyers, who see them as too complex.”

Smartphones, so-named because of their ability to handle e-mail, Web browsing and some computer-like functions, are one of the hottest segments in the cell phone market, propelled in part by devices such as the iPhone and Research In Motion’s line of BlackBerrys.

But the complicated bits of communications gadgetry are not for everyone, said Burden. “We’ve talked to plenty in the industry who say, ‘We sell (some) people a snappy smartphone, and they come back a couple weeks later and say they don’t get it, it’s too confusing. They want a phone where they can make a phone call, do text messaging and maybe have something to hold their calendars.’ ”

Touchscreen phones, in general, are still new to many users, who may think they want such phones, but find themselves longing for physical buttons to press, be it a phone keypad or QWERTY keyboard, once they get the phones home.

“What I have seen with touchscreens is that they tend to polarize people,” Burden said. “Some people absolutely love them; others absolutely hate them. But if a phone is returned, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not working right or working the way it’s supposed to; it’s just not meeting the expectations of those particular users.”

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