I want to replace my daughter's stolen iPhone now that there's no chance it'll be recovered. I'm looking at iPhone 4 models as the thief left my daughter her nice mophie case when they stole it from her (I think they took it out of the case to make sure they were stealing an iPhone and not a commodity Android, hard to tell the difference in the nice red case).

1) We have two lines off contract, so I could go ahead and upgrade my wife's iPhone 4 to a 4S, with my daughter taking the older iPhone. But that means no upgrade to iPhone LTE for that line later this year (which my wife is clearly interested in doing - she has passed on the 4S thinking it wasn't that big an upgrade, which I think she's right). A 32GB iPhone 4S is $300.

2) Purchase a used iPhone 4. Cowboom has several used 32GB iPhone 4 models for about $300. For all I know, we'd be buying a stolen and resold iPhone. But that would keep us contract-free. This is low risk, as the battery case is the main source of power, and the older iPhone had poor internal battery life (it was mine and used heavily).

3) Keep looking for a local sale - a used (but not stolen!) 16GB iPhone 4 would be fine. This might require me to go to the twin cities, a 90 mile drive.

As an aside - Android options are not really worthwhile - we have a large investment in iOS apps, games and educational iBooks I don't want to bother repurchasing. And tech support is easier for me - all I need to do to have my daughter's theft reversed is restore from iCloud.

Any other suggestions? No real rush, but it'd be good to get something in the next month, and she's going to be going to several summer camps where the iPhone is going to be actually very useful for her.

Well, I'm guessing that if you replace it with one of these



there's a very good chance it won't get stolen again.

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- Jack D.




New tasteless sig coming soon!

FWIW, I'm no particular fan of Best Buy but I bought a MacBook Air from CowBoom a couple of months ago and the experience was highly satisfactory.

(CowBoom is a subsidiary of Best Buy.)

Check out the used phones on Amazon, too. I think CowBoom is also a good option.

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Alpharetta, GA (Atlanta suburb)

My current phone was purchased used from Cowboom-- no problems.

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MR/F Guestmap: [www.mapservices.org]

Thanks.

Anyone use the cowboom extended warranty?

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sekker
Thanks.

Anyone use the cowboom extended warranty?

Come to think of it I may have purchased one for my current phone . . . but have not had to use it, luckily.
For under $10, and full replacement, it seemed like a good deal even though I typically pass on warranties.

A minor tip-- the items I purchased came from the Texas location and were in better than advertised condition-- may want to stick to the Texas warehouse.

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MR/F Guestmap: [www.mapservices.org]

For those Cowboom pros, a quick question. Most of the iPhones are either category 4 or 5.

From the descriptors, 5 should be better than 4.

But when you click 'best available', the '4' category devices appear before the '5' devices. And within the '5's, the ones with designated scratches, sticky power buttons, etc are at the bottom.

In other words, how do you sort through the phones? My main worry is that the screen is decent - don't care about scratches on the side or back, it'll be in a mophie case.

Thanks!

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sekker
For those Cowboom pros, a quick question. Most of the iPhones are either category 4 or 5.

From the descriptors, 5 should be better than 4.

But when you click 'best available', the '4' category devices appear before the '5' devices. And within the '5's, the ones with designated scratches, sticky power buttons, etc are at the bottom.

In other words, how do you sort through the phones? My main worry is that the screen is decent - don't care about scratches on the side or back, it'll be in a mophie case.

Thanks!

I have been unable to find any rhyme or reason to the way items are presented. You just have to view each one indivdually. When you are close to selecting a particular phone, screen shot the pop-up window that describes the condition and included accessories relating to that particular item, as there will otherwise be no record.

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MR/F Guestmap: [www.mapservices.org]

I would suggest a 3GS!

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San Antonio, TX (in the old city)

"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."
-- Edmund Burke
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." Theodore Roosevelt (1918)

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Rolando
I would suggest a 3GS!

We considered that, but the only 3GS phone we have easy access to has very poor battery life. If we had to find a battery case or replace the battery, I'd rather invest in an iPhone 4.

Just made the decision with my wife. She decided to go ahead with get her a new iPhone 4S (new) instead of the used iPhone 4, and we'll give her iPhone 4 to our daughter. The out of pocket expense was almost identical to what we'd spend on a used iPhone 4 from Cowboom, which had the best deals online (much better than Amazon, for example).

Thanks for all the suggestions!