Let's see. Your article says that a Galaxy SIII 16 GB is worth $226. It also says a 16 GB iPhone 4S is worth $237. So the iPhone is worth a bit more. However, note that the iPhone is a previous generation. The SIII is still the top of the line Samsung phone you can buy today. So even comparing the current top of the line Samsung to a previous generation iPhone, the selling price is lower.

Why don't you tell us how much that SIII is selling for 5 months after the S4 comes out?

Thanks for proving the point.

Galaxy phones don't hold up well, iphone's quality is much better. Be careful of buying an after market Galaxy

I don't think we need to make this more complex. We can take Gazelle's calculated interest in each phone in various conditions to find the value. Going with Craig's List and eBay has too many variables. It then becomes the Google Maps v. Apple Maps argument all over again.

One thing I noted is that Gazelle doesn't care about the capacity of the Samsung S III. If you move the iPhone 4S from 2011 to 32GB or 64GB you get up to $225, which is only $1 less than then S III on flawless. Now lets assume that very few resales will be flawless as most are likely used so lets put them in the good condition category with no water damage. That moves the iPhone 4S even farther ahead as Gazelle only care about the differences between "normal signs of use" and "looks like it's never been used" by a difference of $10 for the iPhone 4S and $26 for the S III. That means that if you choose good for each, which I think is likely more common, you do get $205 for the iPhone 4S from 2011 in that comparison.

That isn't to take away from the Galaxy S III from 2012 but it is a plastic device with easily discernible differences in build-quality compared to the iPhone so I think its a testament to it's popularity that it's at or above $200 at all. Are other Android-based phones from about a year ago doing as well? I would doubt it.



PS: Anyone want to run this comparison with Amazon's trade in service?

Maybe because there are very few iPhone 5 units that are off-contract and can be traded in?

It's also a bit strange that, with the Samsungs, they ask if there's water damage (a question they don't ask about the iPhone 5 or 4S -- I did not check past those two).

 

What is it that these people do that causes 'water damage' worries for their trade-ins? 

It's also only been about 18 months since the 4S first went on sale. Based on US carrier contracts and the upward cycle of sales month after month I'd guess that very few would be off a natural contract at this point. Other countries where the subsidy is only 12, sure, but that's not common in the US. At least it's not the 3 years for Canada.

You're calling him obtuse? I think someone hijacked pedromartins account either that or he got laid.

It's because very few Samsung owners would give up their smartphone unless it was damaged. That's why they're suspicious if one is being traded in. iPhones not so much as they're traded in all the time.

/s

 

 

I actually think you have something there. Pre-iPhone I never traded them in. I just kept them in a box. A back up, I guess. I don't think I ever really thought about it, but with the iPhone I want the latest model and I want my old one model to continue on elsewhere. Sometimes it goes to a friend or family member in need, but other times it's sold.

One can cherry pick reports to show whatever usage they want to prove. One of the last ones was from a site I had never heard of.

iPhones rule Consumer Satisfaction. 

 

Samsung flotsam and and jetsam . . . do not. 

I don't know, I haven't seen anything that would say Samsung isn't in 2nd place for the smartphone markets or in 1st place for the Android-based smartphone market.

Are we sure the customers are not trading them in for an 4S and are getting the S4 by mistake?

Are we sure the customers are not trading them in for an 4S and are getting the S4 by mistake?

 

I have.

 

Jan. 16 2013

 

 

Surprise: Nokia beats Samsung on smartphone customer satisfaction

 

http://www.citeworld.com/mobile/21310/nokia-beats-samsung-customer-satisfaction

That's the difference when people stand in line for your product to go on sale and when people don't. Then there is the argument of the quality of Apple devices. When you can count on them working for a long time, that adds value.

That's absolutely true in my case. I keep my previous phone for backup in case my main one gets lost or stolen. Btw I was kinda hoping you were correct about the $31, I was already licking my chops at getting a SGS 3 on the cheap.

There are enough for Gazelle to have a price - well over $300. So the current generation iPhone is $100 more than the current generation Galaxy. The previous generation iPhone is about the same price as the current generation Galaxy.

Or, if you want to do it another way, the iPhone 4S goes for $230 from Gazelle - 5 months after the iPhone 5 came out. How much were they paying for a Galaxy SII 5 months after the SIII came out? How much do you think the SIII will go for 5 months after the S4 comes out?

That pretty much proves the point.

I don't think there are any credible usage stats. They are all based on viewing pages where analysts have scripts, which are mostly just in western countries that include a higher percentage of iPhone users. Those script pages account for a small fraction of the total pages on the Internet. Couple that with the fact that by in large, Android users who do have fast web capable phones and do a lot of web surfing are perhaps spending a significant amount of time on Google services and especially YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, all of which do not count in the surveys because there are no analyst scripts on those pages as they are totally private.

 

I also think typical Android users have a much younger age median than iPhone users. This brings a couple metrics to the equation. One, younger people are using more social networking than older people and those pages are not part of the surveys. Also they are less likely to be able to use their device while at work since they probably aren't in management positions that allow surfing. Young people spend a lot more of their free time out and about where there is no WiFi compared to the older users being at home where there is high speed Internet. Despite LTE, surfing on cellular is slow and it uses up your data plan hence people don't do as much surfing when not connected to WiFi.

 

Another related reason is that since Android phones are usually a little cheaper, many users may not even have a computer, so home WiFi might not be as common.

 

Lastly, iPhones are handed down and have a longer lifetime so virtually all iPhones minus the original are still in active use making the total number of iPhones vastly greater than the active number of premium Androids. The premium distinction I think is important because those would be the users most likely to actually surf the Internet on their phone. The low end Androids are probably just used as phones and that is it.

 

Sorry for the long winded explanation but I've been trying to make sense of the statistics discrepancy for a while now and these are just some of my latest ideas on the subject.

LOL yet I wasn't. I was quite shocked by initial result. Apple has a big enough lead that having the world's most popular high-end Android smartphone be that low just doesn't bode well for the industry as a whole. I love my Apple products and the future looks bright foe me buying more Apple products in the future but all I truly want is for technology to progress at the fastest possible pace it can so I can buy the best possible products that suit my needs. A 10 month old, flawless, high-end smartphone with no water damage for $31 does not do that.

The point that used iPhones retain their value isn't surprising, but be honest the price for a used SGS 3 is surprising. It certainly took me by surprise.

I think he meant in sales. It's not hard leading in customer satisfaction when you've only sold a handful of devices.

Yes, it was higher than I expected, but when you consider that it's still the top of the line Samsung phone available and that the overwhelming majority of Android phones sell for (much) less, it's not really that surprising.

Both, really. As you say it's easier to have customer satisfaction for a product when your numbers are low if they get an evan sample of each brand, but I think the 50 million S III's being shipped with dozens of millions clearly in customer's hands and still selling well after nearly a year is proof it's a popular device with high customer satisfaction among Android-based vendors.

Yes but those other Android phones were sold cheaply to begin with. That's more a manufacturers fault than the OS.

I'm just going by what was written, and customer satisfaction is what was specifically being mentioned.

How does someone who supports Apple troll on an Apple user site?

I was thinking the same thing. That word gets thrown around here a lot lately.

My guess is different definitions for trolling.

 

It's sometimes used here simply to identify those members pushing an agenda other than pro-Apple. Occasionally that one in drags in a post from an actual hardcore Apple fan as it's pretty broad.  Sometimes it's used as a tag for someone who makes an inaccurate claim (or several of them), particularly applicable to new posters. Others might define it as making inflammatory or egregious posts simply to get an angry response from other members, no matter their OS allegiance.

 

Take your pick.

 

My definition is anybody who is not an OS X or iOS user.

Apparently.

You mean exclusively.

well, in this case they were using it in defense of Samsung on this site.

It's normally assigned to anyone who aggressively or sarcastically promotes an opposing view from one that you hold. When it's done repeatedly, the label sticks. There's always going to be opposing views in every thread topic so it gets used liberally. Obviously this is a forum for Apple fans so more commonly the label is assigned to people who always take an opposing stance to Apple as there would be little reason to be a member of an Apple oriented forum without ever being pro-Apple except to be disruptive. Of course people can take an interest in what Apple does without being on their side as well as be critical of them when they screw up and there is value in having opposing points of view because criticism can help isolate and improve problems. The people who are here to be disruptive are well aware of who they are and I'm sure most people are by now. While it would be convenient to pick out individuals, there has to be a fair process for everyone to avoid it being personal so the rules are what they are: maintain civil discussion and it's ok. It seems to work ok here IMO, people are mostly pretty responsible. This forum really only has a handful of disruptive types vs hundreds on other news blogs and even they are mostly coherent.

The movement to smartphones has made it a little worse as it's a bigger market and applies a lot more to a younger crowd. Samsung would rarely ever be mentioned before the iPhone but now it's all that gets discussed on Apple forums. It's disappointing in a way because Macs are productive machines so while discussions included how many apps, how many units sold, resale value, they just seemed a bit more worthwhile. I don't think people care as much about phones nearly as much as they do their computers but for some reason it has become the topic of conversation. In much the same way that disruptive posters continue to disrupt, I think the problem is acknowledgement and participation. If people ignored rather than challenged, things would change. If nobody replied to Samsung topics, I imagine the topics would stop being posted. It won't happen though, just look at the topic about the Blackberry guy dissing the iPhone UI - 7 pages in one day.

Lol

They are selling their S3's so they can get the iPhone5 because of it's amazing new features.

Good one.

Applinsider, please stop posting Samsung news. Thank you.

Just because you share the same interests/position as (most) others on a particular forum doesn't mean you won't/can't engage in inflammatory discourse and bait others just for the sake of it. Trolling is about behavior and actions, not necessarily about political positioning. So yes, it is possible for an Apple fanboy to troll on an Apple user site. We see it here all the time.

Pretty common.

When the 4S came out, AllThingsD and CIRP Research found that 49% of the upgrade buyers on AT&T sold/gave their old phone to someone else.

So just over half kept their older iPhone for themselves.