[wltr]

True, also mini phones are usually of an incredible value, you can buy them very cheap. Because, surprise, actually not everyone wants them. And they are seen as crippled gimp phones. E.g. a child had this phone, then pressed their parents to buy them a normal phone. That’s how I ended up having my mini, for basically bananas. Was upgrading from SE1, so it was still a bigger phone. Yet, I’m not willing to go back, modern iPhone is still better than an obsolete one. Almost. Some bugs aren’t there in the old one.

[dijit]

Just checked and if I want an unscratched iPhone 13 Mini I'll be paying about $600 in Sweden. (That's for the places that have it, everywhere seems to be sold out that's cheaper).

That's for a used, 4 year old phone...

For a device that's "cheap to pick up", it's holding it's value more than any other iPhone.

[wltr]

I’m not very sure about the unscratched one, but I remember researching this a couple of months back, in Ukraine. And there were tens of good options (nice condition), for below $200 or $300. Which I consider a pretty decent value. I have no idea whether the war affects this, but pre war this situation was the same, more or so. Maybe that’s because the internal market is quite huge (40 M population pre-war, perhaps 30 M now), plus the country is literally the biggest in Europe. As compared to relatively small(er) Sweden, population of 10 M if I’m correct. I guess there might be cultural aspect as well. More wealthy countries and their societies (like Sweden) might actually be much less obsessed with things like newer iPhones. While they are wildly popular in Ukraine (pre-war). They may be even more popular these days, since we had very massive electricity blackouts just a year ago. And for many people their smartphones is the way to stay connected, and to check in with their loved ones. Plus, the ‘what if I’d be killed tomorrow?’ factor, I see people’s attitude is a bit different because of this either. I know at least one local friend, who said just recently he thinks of updating his 15 Pro Max (which he bought after the realease of the 16 models, saying they’re mostly the same) for the Air. He’s just a middle class guy, nothing too impressive. Other folks I know, they’re wealthy, and it looks like they won’t even think twice, and more likely to upgrade. I bet their logic is a mix of YOLO, plus they’re constantly invest into military equipment and drones for the army, so that $1K for themselves look a minute amount compared to that. All that creates pretty good market conditions for the used phones, so the folks like me could get something of a value for cheap, because others upgraded for no real reason. Personally, I see little difference after the 12th models.