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Is your really old iPhone still worth anything or just e-waste? How to tell
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As someone with both a career that requires me to constantly bring in new gear, and a well-honed personal habit of doing so, I am constantly fighting a battle over electronic clutter.
Sometimes, clutter wins, and I ignore it. But every so often, I summon my inner Marie Kondo, gut up, and do a gear edit.
Last weekend, in another decluttering run, I came upon what might be a precious artifact: my old iPhone 4 from 2011. I have fond memories of this tiny phone. The App Store was available on the iPhone 3G. The iPhone 4 was the first iPhone that let us move beyond AT&T as the sole carrier. In my mind, it was the first iPhone that truly felt like the iPhones we have today.
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Of course, with hindsight, it was tiny and slow. The device only worked on 3G networks, which were effectively dial-up speeds. It wasn't until LTE that we started getting broadband-like speeds on phones. The phone had a super-slow A8 processor and 8GB of storage.
And yet, I really did love it. The device was my constant companion for four years, until I bought a 6s back in 2015. Since then, it has lived at the bottom of a bin, unseen until a few days ago.