Comeau Computing Tech Magazine 2024
Apple is a company with a huge and interesting history. They make smartphones and computers but they have a personal twist to each product they make.
That personal twist is something many enjoy while others condemn it as unnecessary. Whether necessary or not these little things are what attract many new customers all around. Today we are talking about smartphones and Apple’s iPhone line. Since the line was launched it instantly became a hit and rage all around the world where everyone wanted one. What is more interesting is the fact that even today everyone still wants one because it has become a thing of prestige, security, safety, reliability, and much, much more.
Whatever your stand on used smartphones is, Apple probably is the safest bet when you are trying to buy your new used smartphone. Since it is so popular there are a lot of scams, copies, and unwanted ones in the market so you have to watch for a few things when getting a used iPhone. Luckily for you today we have an article that will tell you what exactly to watch for and thanks to places like imei24.com you can do necessary check-ups with ease.
1. Basic functionality
Whenever buying something used or second hand the best thing you can do, especially if it is a smartphone, is turn it on and off one or two times. This will ensure you that the phone is operational and able to boot and reboot without any issues. You should watch it carefully as it goes through this cycle because if there are any OS issues or any hardware issues they will emerge during this time. There is a time frame of around 10 seconds, or around that depending on the model until it completely shuts down or boots up and anything more than that should be considered unusual and further inspection should be performed.
2. Check all the buttons
Although this seems a bit ridiculous, the replacement parts and labor on an iPhone are pretty steep and you need a specialist store for these which makes this type of check crucial. If there are buttons that can be pressed and if they are exposed, check them out thoroughly to make sure that all of them operate as intended. Any issues and non-working buttons or switches should be a red flag and an immediate price negotiation leverage. This is especially important for the older generation of iPhones that had home buttons. These were notorious when it comes to breaking and replacing them is not cheap nor easy since it contains a fingerprint sensor in it as well. Test anything no matter how ridiculous it sounded.
3. Touch/Face ID
These two things are highly important for the normal operation of the smartphone. You can do this by setting up both of these in the settings menu. There you will search Face ID and passcode and set up both of these and test them if they work correctly. When trying to set up Face ID you will get a prompt to set your face in a camera rectangle and if that isn’t visible or if the camera doesn’t prompt up when confirming the Face ID setup then there are no issues with this option. The same goes for the fingerprint sensor. Open the corresponding setting for the touch ID and try to set up your finger. If it is not going through then there is an issue with the sensor which is costly and hard to replace.
4. Check the cameras
What you always do next is check both the front and back camera. Try to open them switch between them and take a few snaps of whatever you can. Look for any lag, bad picture quality or other issues to tell you that the camera or cameras are replaced badly or not working at all. Also, try and make a quick video just to see if that part operates as intended and to check if the internal mic is operating as it should. Switch through all the other modes and feature to make sure everything operates as it should and you will be safe.
5. Sensors
Another huge part of every smartphone is the sensors it has built in. now since iPhones are a bit complicated and since they need professionals whenever something needs to be replaced or changed, more than half of used iPhones have some sort of issues with sensors after some parts of the phone were replaced by untheorized repair shops. Check these sensors out and the easiest one is the GPS that you can simply do it by opening the Maps app and see if it finds you at all and will the location corresponds to the one you are in right now.
6. Connectivity
Another easy and painless check is to see if the Wi-Fi and mobile operators work. Both of these are easily checked and both of them will save you a lot of trouble, especially when one or both are not operational or not working as intended. The Wi-Fi antenna usually gets ripped when doing repairs on the phone, or it can be damaged so it doesn’t work as well. Fire up the Wi-Fi and see if it can search for a signal and can it connect to available ones. The same thing is with sim cards and mobile operators. Whenever someone without experience is making repairs there is a risk of them ripping the card try and damaging the slot where the sim is supposed to go. Insert yours or whatever you have at hand so that you can make sure it works well.
7. Check the iCloud
Whenever you are buying a used iPhone the thing you need the previous owner to do is successfully sign out of their iCloud. If that can’t be achieved for whatever reason then that phone is pretty much useless for you. If the previous owner signs out and you can sign in successfully then there are no issues there and you can continue with further inspection of the phone.
8. Battery
The last and important thing to check is battery health. This is something many would advise checking in the first place, but we like to save it for the end. Thanks to the newer iOS you can check the battery health in the settings tab which makes this job a lot easier for anyone shopping for used iPhones. When you tap on the battery health tab you will get another screen that will read the percentage of the batter and you will see a peak performance capability tab that will tell you if your chosen used iPhone is supporting normal peak capability or not. Whenever getting a used iPhone look for those that show over 80% of maximum batter capacity and you will be good for a while there.
