Great news if you're looking to upgrade to either the S10e, S10, or S10+. Samsung has a trade-in program that's offering potentially massive discounts of up to $550 if you preorder one of their flagships right now — but only for certain phones.
You'll need to act quickly if you want to get the most out of Samsung's offer. The buyback prices aren't set in stone, and will likely be slashed once the preorder period is up. You get a hint of this in the device's purchase page, which displays a regular, crossed out max value of "$300" for trade-ins that is currently replaced with the max of $550. There are also some restrictions you need to pay attention to.
Samsung will not accept your device if it hasn't been factory reset, so restore your phone to factory settings before you trade it in, while making sure you remove your Gmail account to prevent Android's factory reset protection from kicking in and locking Samsung out. It also might be worth getting your device repaired if the price is right, since cracks in the screen or on the camera lens reduce value (as you'll see below), and devices that won't power on are outright ineligible for trade-in.
Samsung Devices
Galaxy smartphones are incredibly reliable devices, and it's not uncommon to see older handsets like the S6 and Note 5 in the wild even today. If you're one of them, now might be a great time to upgrade, as Samsung's offering you top cash for your well-worn Galaxy. These are the current values as of February 2019:
- Galaxy Note 9: $550 (good condition) or $100 (cracked)
- Galaxy S9+: $550 (good condition) or $100 (cracked)
- Galaxy S9: $550 (good condition) or $75 (cracked)
- Galaxy Note 8: $550 (good condition) or $100 (cracked)
- Galaxy S8+: $300 (good condition) or $100 (cracked)
- Galaxy S8 Active: $300 (good condition) or $75 (cracked)
- Galaxy S8: $300 (good condition) or $75 (cracked)
- Galaxy S7 Edge: $150 (good condition) or $50 (cracked)
- Galaxy S7 Active: $150 (good condition) or $30 (cracked)
- Galaxy S7: $150 (good condition) or $30 (cracked)
- Galaxy S6 Edge Plus: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- Galaxy S6 Edge: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- Galaxy S6 Active: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- Galaxy S6: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- Galaxy Note 5: $150 (good condition) or $50 (cracked)
Apple Devices
As Samsung's chief competitor, the tech giant will gladly take your iPhone off your hands as a trade-in for the S10e, S10, or S10+. Incredibly, Samsung accepts almost all iPhone models, short of the iPhone 5 and 5C:
- iPhone XS Max: $550 (good condition) or $250 (cracked)
- iPhone XS: $550 (good condition) or $250 (cracked)
- iPhone XR: $550 (good condition) or $250 (cracked)
- iPhone X: $550 (good condition) or $150 (cracked)
- iPhone 8 Plus: $550 (good condition) or $100 (cracked)
- iPhone 8: $550 (good condition) or $100 (cracked)
- iPhone 7 Plus: $300 (good condition) or $100 (cracked)
- iPhone 7: $300 (good condition) or $75 (cracked)
- iPhone 6S Plus: $150 (good condition) or $50 (cracked)
- iPhone 6S: $150 (good condition) or $50 (cracked)
- iPhone 6 Plus: $100 (good condition) or $50 (cracked)
- iPhone 6: $75 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- iPhone SE: $50 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- iPhone 5S: $50 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
LG Devices
While it doesn't have as large a footprint as Samsung, LG has long been a thorn in the tech giant's side thanks to high quality flagships like the V40 ThinQ. As such, Samsung is happy to take your LG in exchange for their S10, and will accept the following models for trade-in:
- LG V40: $550 (good condition) or $50 (cracked)
- LG V30: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- LG G6: $300 (good condition) or $50 (cracked)
- LG V20: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- LG G5: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
Google Devices
Nothing can beat the Google Pixel line of flagships when it comes to experiencing the Android platform in its purest form. The Galaxy S10 has some notable features to counter this, however, like its Dynamic AMOLED display with a fingerprint sensor built-in, not to mention its lack of an unsightly notch. So if you want to ditch your Pixel, Samsung will gladly let you trade it in for one of their S10s:
- Pixel 3 XL: $550 (good condition) or $150 (cracked)
- Pixel 3: $550 (good condition) or $150 (cracked)
- Pixel 2 XL: $300 (good condition) or $100 (cracked)
- Pixel 2: $300 (good condition) or $100 (cracked)
- Pixel XL: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- Pixel: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
Motorola Devices
Despite being highly regarded for churning out quality devices like the Moto G7, Motorola continues to struggle to keep pace with major competitors. So if your phone is one of the models listed below and you've decided to move on to greener pastures, you should consider trading it in for a Galaxy S10:
- Moto Z3: $150 (good condition) or $50 (cracked)
- Moto Z3 Play: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- Moto Z2 Force: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- Moto Z2 Play: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
- Moto Z: $150 (good condition) or $25 (cracked)
Besides having popular models like the LG G7 ThinQ and V35 ThinQ not included in the trade-in list, smartphones from famous OEMs like Sony, OnePlus, and HTC are also glaringly absent.
If your phone isn't listed here, however, you're not completely out of luck. You could get a similar value to what Samsung's offering by selling your device through a service like Gazelle or Swappa, who, for comparison, are offering around $530 for some of the top-tier phones Samsung will buy for $550, so not a huge difference. It's worth noting, though, that Samsung's deals come with a free pair of Galaxy Buds if you preorder an S10 or S10+ — you can still get that deal if you don't trade in, you'll just have to pay full price and wait if you're using some other trade-in service.
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