Recycling biz reckons AI features are destroying smartphone resale values

Smartphone makers love touting AI, but the technology may be quietly destroying resale values. According to UK used device website Compare and Recycle, Samsung's Galaxy S25 lost 63 percent of its resale value after 12 months, reversing a multi-year trend of Samsung flagships depreciating more slowly with each generation. The …

[alain williams]

"destroying smartphone resale values"

Oh, good. It means that someone like me, who is not interested in AI features, will be able to buy good kit on the 2nd hand market.

[lglethal]

Re: "destroying smartphone resale values"

I think you've misunderstood the article. Or perhaps I have.

My reading is that the second hand market for phones with AI features has tanked. So you would be able to get a second hand phone with AI features cheap. I imagine although it's not mentioned in the article (unfortunately), that phones without AI are holding their value.

So for someone not interested in AI, your stuck with an expensive phone without or a cheap phone with...

[Like a badger]

Re: "destroying smartphone resale values"

As a personal observation, might also have something to do with the fact that Samsung have neglected some features on the core S models, in particular the cameras. If you're buying the various ProPlusXLUltra variants then this applies less, but an S25 (and even the expected S26) don't have much better cameras than the S22 from four years ago. I do have a proper camera, but I still put high value on a smartphone that's as capable photographically as reasonably possible. Samsung seem to think that their best interests are in cramming their phones with crapps that duplicate the usual Android/Google ones, rather than improving the hardware.

[The Dogs Meevonks]

Re: "destroying smartphone resale values"

My first android smartphone was a HTC way back around 2010... my previous smartphone to that was a Sony P990i that I made last 4yrs... It came with default apps for things like twitter, facebook and others... that could not be uninstalled... and then it came with the HTC variants of those exact same apps... that couldn't be uninstalled... none of them could be disabled either.

On a phone with very little storage and memory... it was a shitty move that made sure I never bought a HTC again.

If there's an AI feature and it can be disabled... I disable it... local based AI on the device such as adjusting pics to remove pylons or people for example are fine.

[PCScreenOnly]

Re: "destroying smartphone resale values"

For me the main driver of a new phone is the camera and that it has a microsd slot

Most camera's have not improved over the years. I only got the phone i have now is down to the S9 Edge and the green screen issue and not being able to trust it on a holiday

[PCScreenOnly]

Re: "destroying smartphone resale values"

Hopefully via ADB you can disable the crap AI

Used to do that to Bixby and so on

[Charlie Clark]

Re: "destroying smartphone resale values"

I suspect that the proper conclusion is that the market does not think "AI" makes a phone premium. I've had Samsung phones for the last 15-odd years and they've all been good. I even had a couple of the premiums – S5 and S10e. At the time, the S5 was pretty much stand-out, especially with the case that allowed wireless charging. But since the S10 Samsung has been making the phones bigger but only marginally better whilst keeping prices high. A couple of years ago I bought an A35, which is premium in everything except that it doesn't have Knox (don't need it) and wireless charging, but less than half the retail price of the S series. It has lots of storage, excellent battery life, great camera and 5 years of updates, which is new for Samsung. It has the usual AI shit, which I've never felt I needed.

[PCScreenOnly]

Re: "destroying smartphone resale values"

Pity no Samsung has a memory slot.

useful for music

[Charlie Clark]

Re: "destroying smartphone resale values"

You can use the second SIM-card slot for memory but with 256 GB I'm not even half full.

[Roland6]

Re: "destroying smartphone resale values"

Trouble is the AI is so integrated, it will not be possible to disable it. With the “smart tv”, I can easily bypass the out-of-date, unsupported and very slow “smart” stuff by simply plugging my PC/Xbox into an HDMI port, doubt you can do similar with an “AI phone”…

[Edward Ashford]

Re: "destroying smartphone resale values"

As long as you can turn it off. This is sounding like Samsung should have called it the Disorganiser Mk1 instead of the S24.

A Mk2 would not necessarily be an improvement.

[KittenHuffer]

Is this the first sign ....

.... of the bubble bursting?!?

[lglethal]

Re: Is this the first sign ....

The first rider of the AIpocalypse - Secondhand Smartphones with AI Features...

[Guy de Loimbard]

Re: Is this the first sign ....

pint for you good Sir or Lady Knight.

Also, please tell me your views on the other 3 riders?

[The Dogs Meevonks]

Re: Is this the first sign ....

There have been about a dozen 'first signs' in the last 6 months... the backlash is growing... but it's still strongest amongst those that understand how worthless it is in pretty much all 'generative' forms... Until we reach a critical mass where general consumers tell them to fuck off and refuse to use it... the bubble won't burst.

But burst it will... they are reliant on being able to collect your data, sell you a subscription and serve you ads... and the numbers being invested cannot be recovered in the typical 'shareholder attention span' who demands 'line goes up and to the right' every 3 months.

[Doctor Syntax]

"A recent CCS Insight survey found 47 percent of buyers would actually pay more for a phone with AI features"

Did 53% said they'd pay more for a phone without them?

Not really, I suppose but it does say half your target market is not seeing value in them. That should be a warning sign.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ker-ching ... whooops ... Sorry wrong Ker-ching for the wrong company !!!

Is there anything that 'AI' touches that actually makes money !!!???

[Apart from Journalists for the Media Orgs ... got to keep those clicks going ... Consultancy firms that publish yet another 'AI' survey or FOMO report on future directions ... Memory & HDD producers selling whole year production runs ... Sales people pitching 'AI' trials into ALL orgs, if possible ... etc etc]

Hang on a minute [Facepalm] !!!???

I was Right & Wrong at the same time ... there is lots of money to be made from 'AI' ... as long as you are NOT the actual 'AI' Tech Bros !!!

Everyone else selling all the kit, infrastructure and new build DC's for yet MORE 'AI' (plus the odd stockmarket 'bounce' ... 'put options' for all !!!) are making 'loads of Money'

:)

[Guy de Loimbard]

Re: Ker-ching ... whooops ... Sorry wrong Ker-ching for the wrong company !!!

Bang on the money.

More cash was allegedly made from shovel sales in the gold rush, than there was from the gold, or lack thereof!

[Bebu sa Ware]

42 percent of people in the UK are willing to trust AI.

"42 percent of people in the UK are willing to trust AI. Contrarily, the vast majority of people are concerned about the negative outcomes of AI, and 80 percent believe regulation is required."

I imagine you could replace AI with Reform UK or anything equally dubious and arrive at the same conclusion.

After Brexit it is a mystery to me why anyone would bother polling the great British unwashed. Hardly likely to get a consistent or even rational result.

[heyrick]

Re: 42 percent of people in the UK are willing to trust AI.

I'd have thought "Boaty McBoatface" would have been the ultimate answer to the question "should we ask the public?".

[The Dogs Meevonks]

Re: 42 percent of people in the UK are willing to trust AI.

Local council where my friend lives asked for names for new dustbin collection lorries... You got the usual... I was disappointed my old gamer tag wasn't amongst them. 'DustyBinLaden'

[Anonymous Coward]

So people who bought a smartphone with "AI" as an investment

Are losing their shirts ?

Oh dear. Too bad. How sad. Never mind.

[heyrick]

Re: So people who bought a smartphone with "AI" as an investment

Sometimes you want a decent enough smartphone that it has a good camera, a load of memory (of both kinds), and a processor that doesn't suck...

...and all this AI rubbish comes along for the ride.

[elsergiovolador]

AI

I only use one AI feature on the phone. I hold the AI button and then say: "Set the timer for 10 minutes".

Imagine this probably cost many hundred billions to achieve.

[katrinab]

Re: AI

Siri could do that before AI was a thing.

And I'm not at all convinced that the new AI-enhanced Siri made things any better in that department.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: AI

Witnessing my friend trying to harness Siri on a daily basis, I am not so sure. I can mumble the timer instruction and it will still understand. Siri might want to play Bailando instead.

[Anonymous Coward]

AI phone

no thanks

[heyrick]

47 percent of buyers would actually pay more for a phone with AI features

Be more specific.

I have no problem with an AI to help me get a better photo, or to post process my photos to edit out stuff I was too distracted to notice at the time.

But I have turned off all the Gemini stuff on my phone. Don't trust it, not interested.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: 47 percent of buyers would actually pay more for a phone with AI features

Turned off or is it hiding in the hedges with binoculars on?

[DrewPH]

Re: 47 percent of buyers would actually pay more for a phone with AI features

"47 percent of buyers would actually pay more for a phone with AI features"

Until you tell them to and they actually don't.

Surveys are bullshit. Yes, all of them.

[JimmyPage]

Know what my last use of ChatGPT was ?

A conversation about what phone I could get with as little to no "AI" shite as possible.

Amusingly, when I said I didn't trust "AI", it replied "Me neither". (Alerting me to the fact that our of laziness I had not disabled "enthusiastic mode").

[Noodle]

Just recently looked at buying a new phone and unfortunately all the premium models I looked at with quality materials, glass, charging features etc. were all encumbered with crappy AI "features" I don't want and will never use. As the commenters in the article state, it's now extremely difficult if not impossible to buy a premium quality phone without AI crowbarred into it.

[Combat Epistomologist]

What really matters in a phone?

The honest truth is, there is only one thing that the Galaxy S26 Ultra does that I want done that my 2019-vintage Galaxy Note 10+ doesn't. And that is, have a current Android release available without having to reflash my phone with, say, LineageOS. And the counterpart to that is it's stuffed full of LLM AI¹ crap that I actively don't want. Heck, I went to some lengths to disable Bixby. I do not use my phone for anything I need an overly helpful "smart" assistant trying to help me to do.

I think possibly the most important thing the mobile phone could do to tempt me to "upgrade" to a new phone is to make smartphones work better AS ACTUAL PHONES. Better and clearer audio quality would be a godsend. As it is, the simple truth is that I use my phone ten times more as a mobile-hotspot cellular modem for my 10.5" tablet than I do as a "phone". The tablet is really a quite capable pocket² computer.

____

¹ We really should stop calling LLMs "AI", because they are not intelligent. I refer to them as artificial stupids. I don't remember which SF writer first coined that term.

² For sufficiently large values of "pocket"—i.e, safari vest or cargo pants.

[zapgadget]

Bullsh*t

Smartphones become unsafe to use for banking once security updates stop. This has nothing to do with AI and very little to do with the hardware. Can't the EU just mandate 10 years of security updates?