Its that time of year and now I’m upgrading my phone (again) to a newer model which makes me wonder what can I do with it? The purpose of this blog is to think of the unusual and more obvious ways to dispose of your old phone. iPhones are slightly different due to their limitations, but no doubt you might find this blog useful. I use Android phones so lets look at them.
The obvious!
- Flog it! – So you got your shiny new phone for way over the odds you should of paid for it, your old one is quivering and upset. So you decide now is the time to part company. Besides, that eBay buyer may pay over the odds for it or may decided to offer a cut price. Ether way, you are looking at recouperating your costs. A big tip, do your research first on your make and model of phone as putting in a random price may mean you will be stick with it for a while.
- Keeping it as a spare – It sits in a drawer gathering dust for a few years and brought out when you need it, its great when that brand new LG G5 you had (like I have now) gets nicked on the railway station when you aren’t looking.
- Give it away – Someone is going to like it one way or another, perhaps a friend or a relative, but maybe they have phones and don’t like it either.
- Recycle it – the screens cracked, its been dropped 14 million times (because you didn’t think about putting it in a case – let alone a drop proof one.) and you listed it, no one wants it, but Mazuma (other recycling sites are available!) offered a decent price, so your phone is better off as scrap due to its value, end of the matter.
But, did you know that an iPhone or even android phone can have a lot of uses? What about other projects? You’d be surprised about their power. With a bit of software tweaking, phones can do a lot more than you think. Better still, you don’t need a sim card to operate a phone, most of which you can do already but with the addition of having a phone with a spare battery, you won’t have to worry about running out of battery power.
- GPS companion – Your new phone you prefer to keep its battery fresh as you don’t have a charger yet, not an issue, your old phone makes a great GPS device and with software updates, you can use it to navigate everywhere, plus your new phone doesn’t drain its battery as quickly. It’s particularly problematic when you have a newer phone with a USB type C connector. Free maps are available if you didn’t know already and can help you go everywhere.
- Remote Desktop Client – On some phones, you can buy a USB keyboard for the job and this turns it into a rather good Remote Desktop Connection client which means you can use the phone to connect to a computer somewhere else, you will need to do a few tweaks however to get it to work, but the joys are endless and certaintly allows you to leave the laptop at home. I did this with an old HTC touch Diamond pro 2.
- FTP Server – So you have a lot of files and you want a device that you can store your data on and not have to worry about it. Phones are good at this because they have a battery, so when the power goes out, the downtime is minimised. Soon as the power is restored, you should have your FTP server on in minutes.
- Web server – see above but someone once did this on a Compaq iPAQ and the results were interesting, but again, always on and back up UPS.
- DVR camera or any sort of camera – Most android phones have cameras, so why not use it as a way of recording evidence in a court of law? You’ve had a smash, you have a DVR camera in your car to tell you who the culprits were. Most also have 2 cameras which also does both front and back which should help the courts and insurance companies give a bigger picture of the accident.
- Fully fledged desktop computer – Again, the phones have the capability and with the right sim card, you can even use it as a networked computer to browse the internet if you haven’t got one already. A few cables (MHL cable for example), the right monitor (with HDMI ports) and a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, you actually have a fully fledged desktop. When Superbook comes out, which is a laptop shell for a phone (others are available), you even can use the same old phone as a permanent laptop.
- Music player – One I never thought of, but its possible to use a phone as an iPod like device and one person I met did indeed use her old phone as a music player, the battery life should be pretty good because you won’t have a sim or wifi to worry about.
- MID or Mobile Internet Device – Great for walking around surfing the web on wifi if you are very cautious about not wanting to use your data, you won’t need much as the software is already on the phone.
- Spare parts – Very useful if you have a job lot of phones with different faults, if you know how to take a phone apart and put it back together, you can use your old phone to put together several new ones.
So, upgrading your phone? Here is 9 unusual ways to use a phone for a different purpose. Notice that I’ve not put tutorials in, because tutorials A) would take a lot of time and B) would take up a lot of space. The idea is to give you an idea of flexibility. There are many more ways you can use a phone and a lot I’ve mentioned you can already do on your own phone with or without a sim card, but the idea is to use the old phone instead of the new phone. There are many many more ways as well, like a dedicated 3G modem for your laptop, a phone for dodgy people, etc. If you think out the box, you can think of different ideas.