The sole reason why I keep my boxes, is because some people won’t buy your phone unless you also have the box with it. Otherwise they’ll rightfully assume that you stole it from some random person and want to pawn it off.
But it’s better built than the phone is.
It’s always sensible to keep the boxes for the stuff you’re currently using. If you sell something, it’ll fetch a better price with the original box. If you give it away, the recipient will also appreciate it more. Just make sure to throw out the boxes from stuff you haven’t had around in ten years. Don’t ask me how I know.
But where will I keep my assorted lengths of wire, tiny drill bits, and interesting mineral formations?
This.
Also useful for warranty/returns.
For larger items like TVs, there’s specialized packing material, which if used correctly, can better protect the TV from damage during a house move.
There’s a lot of good reasons to keep this stuff… Just, put it in a closet somewhere and forget about it. Every time you add anything to the collection, go through what you have and throw out any boxes for things you no longer own. Maybe they were damaged, maybe they were stolen, who knows, but if you’re adding to the pile, something can very likely be taken away from the pile too.
Just, put it in a closet somewhere
Sure.
In the house I can’t afford
Sounds like a gen Z problem I’m too gen X to understand.
Reselling old but functional deveices in the original box
Not a fan of of just throwing things away
No!
Is this even legal?
No.
goddamn these provocateurs!
Once at band camp… I tore off the tag from a pillow… AND the mattress. Imma Rebel bitch
Those boxes are VERY useful when you’re buying a new phone by trading in the old one. Keep them.
I’m poor, I will keep my phone until it breaks down
I literally have all my small device boxes in a reusable tote box in a storage location at my house, and larger boxes for TVs and stuff sitting next to it.
I keep this stuff for warranty, resale, and a place to store any unused or unneeded additional items that came with the device. Maybe a cable or power brick, since I have most of my power/charging needs already solved, or documentation like receipts or included user manuals or something… Depending on what came with the device. Whether it’s a cellphone box or something like a Google/nest home speaker thing or whatever.
This only serves as a reminder to go through it sometime. My SO sold her phone without me being involved (she’s a strong independent person, so I’m not upset about it at all), but I know the box for the phone she sold is still in there somewhere. If I had known she was intending to sell it, I would have fetched the box for her to sell with it, and honestly that’s the only part of that I’m somewhat disappointed with. Now I have to find the box and get rid of it.
Boxes for larger items like TVs are great to have on hand when moving, since I can care a bit less about what’s placed in/around the TV, since I just pack it in its original box which has plenty of protection for the screen.
I may discontinue the practice in the coming years since, a few years ago, we moved into a property that we own rather than one we are renting. Once I feel established enough that we’re not going anywhere, a lot of those larger boxes are headed for the shredder.
Since I am Gen X I can safely ignore this and sit comfortably on my throne of old phone boxes.
You have a cupboard with every console of the 90s and 00s stuffed back into the box awaiting Ragnorak right? Plus maybe some original Game + Watches.
What a nonsensical stereotype.
They’re in the attic.
I got my GCON-45s back the other day. I’m honestly tempted to see if the CRT still works for a bit of Point Blank 2.
I have an Atari 2600, a non functional ColecoVision consol, an IntelliVision II, my original Nintendo Entertainment System, original green screen GameBoy, original Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One S, Playstation, Playstation 2, Nintendo DS Lite, as well as boxes of games for all of the above. I unfortunately sold my Nintendo 64 to buy a girlfriend a tatoo (yes dumb and horney) so I no long have that and yes I am sad about it.
Since I always keep stuff forever, I’m not sure I can comfortably sit on the 6 phone boxes I’ve accumulated in my lifetime.
I believe in you
At this point I think my OG Droid box is almost a family heirloom.
You say that, but then I throw away the box to my phone and suddenly my phone bricks itself and I need to find a box to send it back to the shop in.
I’m not sure about US, but in EU there is a law that makes companies accept products for warranty without original box. Saving every box is nightmare, so the law is basically common sense.
Yeah but I’d rather not be going to the post office to get a box to perfectly fit a phone when I have the original box.
“Saving every box”, is a hobby.
Are we hobby shaming now?
That’s called hoarding disorder
Hobby shamer
But when the old phone gets its final resting place in the cupboard, I want it to be in the original box.
This is what I do, along with a few other devices I’ve owned. Sometimes I’ve been able to give perfectly decent devices away to friends/coworkers/family who had a sudden problem with theirs and have a hard time affording a new one.
But unlike the old video game consoles that I do the same thing with, I am always a bit worried about long-term storage of devices that use lithium ion batteries. I know failure rates are rare but I’ve heard the horror stories and I know the risk increases each time I take another device and put them back in a box up on the shelf.
Hopefully some day, people will look back and laugh at us using lithium ion batteries like we laugh at lead paint, nitrate film, and asbestos.
Give away, repurpose, or resell. This is the right way. I myself only purchase used phones. No need for perfectly usable devices to become electronical waste.
Exactly.
When it comes to phones at least, I also try to keep mine for as long as possible because there’s honestly no point in upgrading just for the heck of it. Companies don’t release meaningful “must have” features anymore like they did back when people felt it was normal to upgrade every couple of years. No need to contribute to e-waste when it can be avoided.
I’ve been using my current phone for 4 years now, and the phone I had before that I used for 6. I upgraded only because I received the newer one for free from work, but I gave my previous phone away to a friend who needed one because I wasn’t going to throw away a perfectly good phone that I was happily using just fine a few months prior. Sure, the battery life was no longer quite as good, but I didn’t really care (nor did my friend) because we at least remember the days where you were lucky if your phone made it more than 8 hours on a single charge. You just learn to deal with it and bring a spare charger if you’re planning to be out for a while.
Heck, by the looks of it, companies are just making the newer models worse and worse without actually adding anything. They’ll have to tear my current phone out of my cold dead hands.
Essentially giving it proper funeral it deserves
I’ve resold all my old phones (for cheap, but still). Handy for that, it is much easier to resell something with a box than without one.
When I sell my 5 year old flagship phone I’ll get $30 more easily if I have the box and the stuff that came in it. People see that and subconsciously think “this person has their shit together. buying their used phone isn’t a risk.”
Same goes for other stuff, too. I recently sold a synthesizer for $150 over the market rate because I had the box, manual (even though it was out of date due to firmware updates) and the stickers that came with it.
I like semi up-to-the-minute tech, so keeping things in good shape and giving someone the unboxing experience keeps my costs down at the cost of a little space in my closet.
+1 to this- I was about to comment the same thing before I saw your comment. Phones with packaging definitely sell better.
Hey it actually helps if you ever want to resell it. Prices around the same which listing are you going to pick? The one of some reseller who has the same generic photo or the one with the complete box and even the original cable still sealed in it?
