According to a report from the Recycling Factory, in the UK, 52% of unused mobile phones are being hoarded at home in case the current in use handset is stolen, lost or broken. They go on to point out that 68% of claim to having more than one mobile phone needlessly collecting dust at home. I know I do.
Part of the problem is feature creep. The never ending “what’s new” and “what’s different.” Take the iPhone. In less than two years, I’ve ended up on my third iPhone with the arrival of the GS. With my Blackberry I pass the old one down the line to team members as the basic functionality exists in all, and has from day one as a messenger. Speed and things like GPS also don’t matter much with them. Then there are my Nokias. Even if they weren’t a client I’d likely had made continual upgrades with the E series devices which steadily offer me more, while with the N series I’ve yet to see anything better than the N95 or N95-8GB come along, including the N97, though the new mini N97 I saw on Thursday at Gigaom’s Mobilize sure looked snappier and better.
Bottom line is we all tend to have “old phones” lying around. The problem is in the case of many, they are simply outdated. Take some Windows Mobile devices I’ve acquired for use of Verizon or Sprint’s networks in the USA. While good, they don’t update/upgrade well, and as processor speeds move upward their use to me, and even others degrades. In my mind we need the ability to upgrade what’s inside the phones, not the whole phone, because in many cases, what’s outside rarely changes, with the WinMo devices.
Agree for the western world where there’s no second hand market and contracts (US in particular) often determine the replacement cycle. In some of these emerging markets top end phones are often traded as soon as the next model comes out. This creates demand for second hand markets and “profits”. It’s more like the old trade in the car… I’ve also found some of the same people are much more savvy when it comes to what the phone will do. Others are simply motivated by image / Brand and their usage continues to be limited by lack of a decent 3g connection.
Like many I decided not to upgrade my iPhone3G. Yes I still use some Nokia’s from time to time and would like to spend more time using Android phones too. Yet the motivation for that is very different to the standard user.
Recycling programs could be more effective too.