How Did (Will) You Get Rid Of Your Old Phone or Tablet?

hollydolly said:
I have a drawer full of old IPhones and various other makes before the Iphone...( Blackberry , Nokia etc)

I wish I could find a use for them or a home for them with someone who could use them..but alas.. aside from one, they're all too old for updates... so no-one could use them for their intended purpose..
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I have a box full in the attic. I need to go through them and be sure there's no data.
Wal-Mart has a kiosk where you can redeem them for cash. I heard you don't get much. Probably best to donate or recycle.
 

hollydolly said:
These are a few of my old mobile phones

my-old-mobile-phones-HD.jpg
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How many pounds did you spend on all of those?
 

mrstime said:
How many pounds did you spend on all of those?
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well the front left and front right... are Sony Ericcsson and weren't expensive.. the 2 Blackberries which were the elite smart phone before I phones.. were at a discount because my daughter was the International Executive for Blackberry...

That leaves 3 Iphones in the picture ..and my husband bought the first one as my Christmas or birthday gift.. which was several hundred pounds...way back some years ago.. and then he upgraded his own Iphone every couple of years and I would get his old one, so in the event they didn't cost me a penny...

This year I have the iphone 12...( the latest is the 14)... and that 12 was my daughters' phone, so when she upgraded to 14 last Christmas, I got her Iphone 12... so in answer to your question... they cost me very little money
 
Since I retired, we have got rid of a half dozen or more old laptops, a dozen or more old external hard drives, and a dozen or more old phones by having a Commercial Metal Shredding & Document Disposal Service to grind them up.

We also got rid of 45+ years of technical materials and reference files I had built up.

Kind of sad - at least to me, but much of it was Proprietary and thus to the Shredder went hundreds of pounds of paper, books, manuals, and stuff...

I made some talk of calling some of the youngsters at Megaoil Corp that I had worked with to see about giving it to them.

But ms gamboolgal lined me out right quick that they would not use it as they would be able to get it from their Smart Phones or Laptops. And once I got over my bruised feelings, I realized she was right, and called the Super Shredder to come - ha !

Cycle of Life and all that....

ETA - Hard for me to admit but I can't physically do what I did all my life anymore.
Thus - I need to go thru all my Hand Tools and Power Tools and cull the stuff that is not operable or any use.
Then I need to find a young man or lady who could use the Tools and give them away. I would rather see them be put to good use by someone who could use them to help make a living or build or repair or improve there property.
 
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OneEyedDiva said:
Thank you for the good advice. I'm hoping I can find a recycling place that will take it, if not Best Buy. Regardless, I intend to do a factory reset to wipe off all my personal date..which truthfully is mostly games and some of my contacts.
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Does a 'reset' actually wipe the data, or does it just set the device so that the data can't be accessed in any normal way? The data is still there but assigned to be randomly overwritten with new data. The old data is potentially accessible with a suitable device.

If, for example, we were to delete something on a computer, including from the 'recycle bin,' is it possible to recover it since it's actually still on the hard drive. As far as I'm aware when something is 'deleted,' the data isn't immediately erased from the hard drive; rather, it's marked as space in memory to be overwritten. This process of overwriting could take days, weeks, or even months, depending on the location of the original data within the memory.

One iPad I had that wouldn't charge and became uneconomical to repair, I put in a bowl of salt water for a few weeks. Smashed it up then put it in the bin.
 
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Magna-Carta said:
Does a 'reset' actually wipe the data, or does it just set the device so that the data can't be accessed in any normal way? The data is still there but assigned to be randomly overwritten with new data. The old data is potentially accessible with a suitable device.

If, for example, we were to delete something on a computer, including from the 'recycle bin,' is it possible to recover it since it's actually still on the hard drive. As far as I'm aware when something is 'deleted,' the data isn't immediately erased from the hard drive; rather, it's marked as space in memory to be overwritten. This process of overwriting could take days, weeks, or even months, depending on the location of the original data within the memory.

One iPad I had that wouldn't charge and became uneconomical to repair, I put in a bowl of salt water for a few weeks. Smashed it up then put it in the bin.
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Good question. If I'm not mistaken, I read that doing that before getting rid of your device will make it safe because the sensitive information will be gone. The only sensitive information I accessed on that tablet need logins, so I'm not worried about that. I never keep passwords in those (allegedly) secure password keepers. Now you've stoked my curiosity and I'll read up on that again.
 
Apple gave me a large trade in when I traded my i7 for an i12. But they didn't want my phone, so now I've got two phones. I don't think it works though. Maybe it does, I should try it.
 
All of my previous phones have been "talk only" (no stored data) so they've just been taken to the recycling center. I'm still on my first tablet, so I'll worry about disposing of it when the time comes.

When I need to dispose of old computer hard drives, I disassemble them (which requires a hardened drill bit and a bit of muscle). I then remove the actual disk, bend it into an "artistic" shape using a large bench vice and hammer, and bury it somewhere in the woods. The remainder of the hard drive drive goes into the trash. The computer itself (less the hard drive) gets recycled.

The old floppy disks were sooo much easier to deal with . . . just run'em through the paper shredder. :ROFLMAO:
 
You can use an old mobile phone as a home security camera. I only know because someone I used to work with did. I am pretty sure he said you can use them as trackers and WiFi extenders but, I have never needed to so don't know how it's done but, I know were, and probably still are, lots of YouTube videos. Might be fun just to try it out?
 

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