What Do I Do With All These Phones?
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I don’t think it’s any huge secret or anything that I’ve got a lot of phones lying around. I have at least three just within a couple of feet of my keyboard!
I recently got an email from the folks at Comunicano about their “No Phone Unused” initiative. Comunicano runs a Blogger Relations program for Nokia, which means they’ve sent out a lot of phones, boxes, packaging, and what have you. The “No Phone Unused” initiative is to ensure all these bits are recycled, either through reuse with other bloggers or sent back to Nokia for proper recycling or disposal.
I could probably be a bit more aggressive about recycling my phones, but I do have a couple of reasons for keeping them around:
1. I occasionally evaluate mobile phone software for Nokia and others. I sometimes need an older phone to test things on.
2. I frequently gift phones to people. A few weeks ago when I was in Ottawa, a new co-worker had gotten her new AT&T SIM and whatever low-end Nokia phone AT&T had at the time. Unfortunately, most of my co-workers demand–and need–Eseries phones. I brought a couple of spare phones with me on the trip–including a Nokia E61i. I wasn’t using it, she needed one, so I lent it to her. Simple as that. I may get it back eventually, after they are done doing some additional tests with it. I’ve also gifted phones in non-work circumstances as well.
When I have decided to “let go” of a phone and can’t gift it to anyone, I bring it with me on my next trip to the office and recycle it in one of the handy phone recycling kiosks. As I said, I probably need to do this more often.
There are a few phones, however, that I can’t do any of these things with. These phones are prototypes. Prototypes are Nokia property. I can’t give these phones away and they must be given back to appropriate individuals to be dealt with accordingly.
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Tags: Mobile phone, nokia, recycling Fnord
Comment by spg
where i am currently living in denver the popular cut rate carriers is crickit. they will re flash and program any cdma phone. you can either buy an expensive one from them, buy a prepaid verizon and hope it unlocks easily or a used phone(smartphones that are not really supported in functionality such as blackberries seem to be very popular at the crickit shops - it seems clear they are owned for style reasons not functionality, mostly by teenagers) anyways the used phones are quite overpriced in my opinion. it would be really nice to see more some a used phone market for people on a budget who want use prepaid services, etc. i tend to feel this would be better recycling than giving away for free only to have a perfectly good phone melted down(what very often happens to phone given to recyle kiosks).
Comment by JV
I agree on availability of phones for people on a budget, but I think the problem is the used electronics market in the US, does not warrant. I am looking into putting something together but shipping it overseas where there is a market for the used.
Comment by PhoneBoy
It looks like MetroPCS is doing the same thing, though they are actually reflashing certain handsets as opposed to just unlocking them.
There would be a much better secondary market for mobile phones if we had one standard instead of two (GSM and CDMA). Hopefully the fact that VZW and AT&T are both going LTE will unify things a bit more.
Comment by PhoneBoy
There seems to be a decent market for used phones on eBay, JV.