How much buying refurbished actually saves
Enter the price of the phone new and the price of the same model refurbished, then how long you expect to keep it. The tool shows the saving in pounds, as a share of the new price, and what it is worth for each year you use the phone.
You save £300.00 — 33.37% of the new price
Over 24 months of use that is £150.00 for each year you have the phone.
"Refurbished" means different things from seller to seller. Check the warranty length, the returns window, the battery health, whether the phone is unlocked, and the grade wording — a phone described as good may have visible marks. A longer warranty and a no-questions returns window are often worth paying a little more for.
Compare like with like: the same model, storage size, colour and network band support, and check the IMEI is not blacklisted. If a refurbished phone carries no warranty at all, treat that as part of the price.
What refurbished actually means
There is no single legal definition, so the word covers anything from a phone that has never been used to one with a replaced screen and a scratched frame. Reputable sellers publish a grading scale — often like new, excellent, good and fair — and describe exactly what each grade shows. Where the wording is vague, assume the phone will have visible marks.
Check the battery health. A phone that has been through a full cycle of daily use may hold well under its original capacity, and a replacement battery is a cost the seller may not have told you about. Sellers that guarantee a minimum battery capacity, usually around 80% or better, are doing something most do not.
Warranty, returns and the price of getting it wrong
The difference between a two-year manufacturer warranty and a 90-day seller warranty is worth real money, so factor it into the comparison. A longer returns window is equally valuable: faults that show up in the first weeks — a speaker, a charging port, a sensor — are the reason refurbished phones get returned. Keep the box and the receipt for the full window.
Also check the phone is unlocked and not tied to one network, that it supports the bands your network uses, and that the IMEI is clean. A quick check against a stolen-device register takes seconds and costs nothing.
When new is the better buy
If the gap is small, or if you keep phones for four years and want every software update, new is usually the better buy: the older handset you save £100 on may stop receiving updates sooner, which is where the saving disappears. If the gap is a third of the price and you upgrade every two years anyway, refurbished is hard to argue with.
Compare like with like: same model, same storage, same colour where it matters, and the same network band support. A cheaper listing that is the 64GB version of a 128GB phone is not a saving at all.
Coverage information comes from each network's own checker and from Ofcom's Map Your Mobile. Contract and roaming rules follow Ofcom's guidance for phone customers. CompareDirect does not sell phones, SIMs or contracts, and takes no commission from the buyers listed here.
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