tdgeek:sxz:kobiak: I struggle to think that iPhone keep good value... losing 60% of its value within 1-2yrs.. is it good?
buying nokia 1110 for $50 and selling it for $30 2 yrs later - that is a good retained value of the product.
My 32g iphone 4 was (near enough to) $1200 new. .
S3 was $1049
S4 will be $1149
iPhone 5 16GB is $1029
iPhone 5 32Gb is $1199
Not sure about the GB on these S3/4 prices, I assume 16GB, maybe 32GB for the S4
So the pricing at the top end is not a lot different, and the same rules of depreciation will apply as with all products. But as the OP states the iDevices seem to hold on a bit better on resale.
alright. telco's prices for S3 where high in the release, then dropped slightly. now selling for $850 NEW (but you can get new for $550 (buying in NZ), we are not looking at parallel imported, right?)
on trademe - decent s3 costs over $450 - does not matter bought today or year ago.
if we want to generalize, retained value of s3 is over 50% but iphones is below 50%. so which one is better now? :)
sure, there will be someone who buys iphone4 for $500.