If you upgrade to a Samsung Galaxy S24, what should you do with your old phone?

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If you’ve just upgraded to a newSamsung Galaxy S24,Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus, orSamsung Galaxy S24 Ultrathen it could be easy just to forget about your old phone. But neglecting it in a drawer is rarely the best option.

After all, smartphones can often be expensive items, and even an older one can still have a lot of life left in it. So there are numerous things you might want to consider doing with your old phone.

Below, we’ve listed the main options, so whether you’re turning it into cash or a baby monitor, it won’t go to waste.

Sell or recycle it

Selling or recycling your old phone is perhaps the most obvious thing to do with it, and this can be a great way to take some of the sting out of the price of yourSamsungGalaxy S24.

Some carriers let you trade in your old phone as part of the purchase process, as does Samsung itself when shopping direct. But if you missed your chance to do this or bought your Galaxy S24 from somewhere that didn’t offer this service, there are still plenty of places you can sell your old phone to now.

We’ve got a dedicated guide coveringhow to sell your old phone, but in short there are various companies which will give you an online quote, and which you can then send your old phone off to.

In the US, sites likeSellCellandDecluttroffer this service, while in the UK, there’s the likes ofSellMyMobileandMusic Magpie. Some of these sites will buy your phone even if it’s damaged or broken, as the parts still have value when recycled, though of course you’ll get less for it this way. For more options, check out our guide coveringphone recycling.

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There are also brick and mortar stores that will buy your old phone, such as CeX in the UK, though these won’t typically take heavily damaged handsets.

Alternatively you can take a more hands-on approach by listing it on something like eBay or Facebook Marketplace. This lets you set the sale price so you might get more for it, but it’s also more hassle and there’s no guarantee your phone will sell.

Before selling or recycling it anywhere though, make sure it’s factory reset and that you’ve removed the SIM card and microSD card (if one was present). For more advice on what to do before selling, check out our guide coveringwhat to do before selling your old smartphone.

Convert it into something

A less obvious use for your old phone is to use it for something else. After all, smartphones are very versatile devices, with their combination of a screen, cameras, speaker, and ability to run apps, allowing them to work well as all sorts of things.

This includes a baby monitor, with the help of an app like Cloud Baby Monitor (available oniOSandAndroid), or a security camera, using an app like Alfred Home Security Camera (also available on bothiOSandAndroid).

Other use cases you might want to consider include a dash cam or a smart home hub. But for more ideas, check outeight ways to repurpose your old Android or iPhone.

Give it away

If you’ve got a friend or family member who could do with a new phone, then you might want to consider giving them your old one – assuming it’s an upgrade on whatever they already have.

Or failing that, you could even consider giving it to charity. You won’t get any money for doing this, but you can feel good about knowing that you’ve brightened someone’s day or helped a good cause.

In any case, as with when selling a phone, make sure that you’ve reset it and removed the SIM card and – if applicable – the microSD card before giving it away.

Keep it as a backup phone

One final option is to keep your old phone as a backup handset. Accidents happen, so having ready access to an alternative phone if your shiny Samsung Galaxy S24 becomes lost or broken could be handy.

You could also keep your old one to use at places where perhaps you don’t want to bring your main phone, such as a festival, where there may be an increased chance of it getting damaged or stolen.

Consider how likely you are to actually make use of a backup phone though – if it’s probably just going to live in a drawer for the next decade then you’re better off taking one of the suggestions above.

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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.

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