Replacement Sprint Cell Phone

[RetireeInTraining]

Hey everyone --

I broke my Sprint Samsung S-7 Edge cell phone over the weekend and have a long time to go before I'm due for an upgrade. I'd rather not blow $500+ on a new replacement. Want to see what people think are my best options.

Couple considerations:

- I actually PREFER the S-4 phone that I once used with Verizon (still have it in great condition). It's hardier and simpler
- I have a spare Samsung S-7 phone at home that's NOT a Sprint phone and, I'm told, may not be usable under Sprint (soooo annoying if this is true!)
- I've never bought a used phone/older model phone online, but I'm open to doing so; just a little nervous of getting scammed somehow

Does anyone have any suggestions? Ideally I'll spend less than $100 on this annoyingness and use some leftover dollars to buy myself an industrial-style protective case.

Thanks

[Daley]

Pay off what you owe on your Sprint account for the phone you broke (if you didn't buy it outright) and take your Verizon S4 to a cheaper AT&T or Verizon MVNO from the guide that suits your needs.

Also use it as a learning moment on phone pricing and chasing after upgrades.

[RetireeInTraining]

Wow, that's a heck of a guide -- thanks for that. Good to know for future reference.

For the moment, however, I'm on a family plan (not the main account) with my folks and siblings and don't want to change things up for everybody. So I'm really just looking to get a replacement up and running on the Sprint system.

Does anyone have personal knowledge/tips with Sprint in this regard?

[Daley]

And I only linked you the abridged version of the thing. Forum formatting was no longer conducive to housing the guide in its entirety.

Anyway, given the family plan situation and it being Sprint, your hands are considerably more tied. Your only choice given you won't rock the boat is a used/refurb for cheap, price a repair (either a shop or a DIY via an iFixit style teardown - if that's even an option yet or at all, haven't checked how service unfriendly the S7 is), or check to see if there was any accidental damage insurance either through Sprint or a credit card (the latter only if you bought it outright).

If you don't mind giving Windows Phone a try, you can pick up a used Sprint Lumia 635 for under $25 these days off Ebay with a clean ESN, and though Sprint never did an official WP10 update for it, you can ride the stable developer preview build channel bringing it current.... and apparently WP10 runs silky on the thing. I can personally attest to battery life and data usage being quite good on the platform, too... but it's not for everyone. Definitely a practical person's sort of smartphone platform.

As for buying used/refurbished in general, the long short is ensuring the device has a clean ESN and you buy from a volume mobile phone dealer off Ebay, meticulously kept private devices where they'll share the ESN so you can check it, or use a used phone buy/sell service like Swappa.