Hi all,

The second-hand or used goods market is very large and seems to be growing still especially in low-income areas and the country as a whole. As a result of such, people are mostly looking for a second hand gadget that is in the condition the seller says it's in as we know, people lie.

Here are some helpful tips that would give you at least 80 percent chance of being accurate in your dealings..



Power:

Power is such a powerful word if i can say such. Every tech item needs to be powering fully and regularly if it's to be even considered working. It's advised to power the item at least 3 times to make sure that it's powering regularly and consistently then you can move over to the next step.

Sim Card Slot:

In every phone, the sim card as little as it is holds key to the definition of a phone as if there's a problem there, then your phone can't be used to call out or receive calls, what then does define it? It's advisable to insert your sim properly, remove it and insert it and be on the watch for any irregularities in the compartment, whether it's soldering or gum or any part of the metal casing being loose.

Charging port/USB port:

Most phones nowadays now have both charging and USB functions on the same port and as such makes it's more important to watch out for. It's helpful to plug to either a laptop or power source to ascertain that the port is fully functional and watch out for shaky ports or ports that take in or release the cord with force or slack.

Mouthpiece/Earpeice/OutSpeaker/Camera.

Here's a nice tip for doing such. If it's a smartphone, you can record a video with the phone and play it close to your ear. Why? when you do that, you affirm that the camera is working, when the video plays back, you affirm that it can receive noise from the mouth and you can hear that noise plus the speaker also playing back confirms that. Whoa! one move to kill a lot of birds.

Other important tests are the swiping of the screen, and for phones that have keyboards, it's nice to test every letter and key on it if possible.

In all, it's not a given to check out everything on the phone as time might not be available due to location or whatsoever reason but these listed above would augur well most of the time.

Till then....Bye.

Source:http://www.cashdown.com.ng/2016/03/18/when-buying-a-second-hand-phone-or-gadget/


For more news on used items and pawns kindly visit www.cashdown.com.ng

When buying a new hand2hand phone, u shld have d phone in ur custody 4 lyk 2 hours, by doing this u wld have discovered 70% of d phone problem. And u should try charging it wen switched off.

MuslimPrince:
When buying a new hand2hand phone, u shld have d phone in ur custody 4 lyk 2 hours, by doing this u wld have discovered 70% of d phone problem. And u should try charging it wen switched off.

That's correct bro. However how many owners would wait 2 hours?

Your're very correct though

Informative,thanks for sharing

Greatzeus:
Informative,thanks for sharing

no wahala man...sharing knowledge is what makes the country bigger...

If you do not know what to look out for, do not attempt to buy a second hand phone. You would think the information listed here would be obvious to any would-be buyer but over-confidence was what did me in last week. A condensed video of EVERYTHING you need to check for in a used phone can be found on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTvU44vQiR0&t=18s . Shine your eyes!

Buying a second and phone is always not the.right up...I'll rather use a new tecno Spark than buy a stolen iPhone x

I would also add that you must check if the phone is network locked or blacklisted.

You can check if the phone is blacklisted on http://imeipro.info/

And then, if the phone's IMEI is clean, you can check if it's network locked by inserting a SIM card and placing a phone call, as in this guide: https://www.unlockunit.com/blog/how-to-check-if-your-phone-is-network-locked/

After making sure that you have both the seller SIM card (with which the phone works) and a different one (to test if the phone accepts it), perform these steps:

1. Insert the SIM Card that you want to start using the phone (Please make sure that the new SIM Card is activated)
2. Turn on the phone and wait for it to load
3. If your SIM card has a PIN code (4 digits), you will need to insert it

Your device is network locked if it displays:

1. “SIM Network Unlock PIN”
2. “This device can be remotely unlocked if eligible..."