Apple announced that their next generation iPhone, iPhone 3G S will be available on June 17 at WWDC 2009 Keynote address.

So if you are planning to upgrade to iPhone 3G S then one of next logical steps would be to sell your old iPhone.
Just like last year, John, one of our readers pointed out that it was a good time to look at the various options that are available to sell an older iPhone.

There are a few options available out there so I thought it would be a good time to check them out to see which one would be the best place to sell your iPhone.

1. Flipswap

Flipswap is a US-based mobile phone reuse and recycling firm that offers you a trade-in for your old iPhone. You can get cash or Amazon gift cards or even donate it to one of the listed charities on their website. All you need to do is input your iPhone model, and it will come up with the maximum trade-in price that your old iPhone can fetch. You then have to input your info, answer a few questions about your iPhone and enter its IMEI and they’ll give you an estimated price for your iPhone and send the check right away.

They also have an option where the proceeds of your old iPhone can be donated to one of the listed charities. They claim that

“Flipswap works closely with our recyclers to ensure that any device that has reached the end of its useful life will be recycled using the most responsible techniques available” and they also “pledge to plant a tree for every phone that is recycled as part of their reLeaf project”.

You can decide if you want to fatten your wallet or donate the money to charity. The nice part is that the service is free, and they even pay for your shipping costs.

The screen shot below displays the maximum trade-in values they currently offer for iPhone models that are in good condition. (The trade-in prices drop based on the condition of your iPhone). I also found their offer prize better in comparison to the other websites that offer similar service.

2. Craiglist

Craiglist is a well-known and one of the popular websites for classified listings. The posting on this site is free. The current offer on an iPhone 3G 8GB model seems to range from $275 to $399 while iPhone 3G 16GB model range from $300 to $450. So you might be able to strike a good price deal on your old iPhone.

3. eBay

eBay still seems to be one of the best places to sell a used iPhone.

When I looked up eBay, I found that a used 16GB iPhone 3G are getting bids between $200 to $449 and 8GB iPhone 3G are getting bids between $190 to as high as $370.

You should also read this old article over at Gizmodo that explains the strategy to follow to sell your old iPhone for more than you paid and also this article over at TheAppleblog.

Note:

Before you sell your iPhone it’s recommended that you use one of the following options to erase the personal data from your iPhone.

If you are running iPhone OS 2.0 or greater then go to ‘Settings’ > ‘General’ > ‘Reset’ and click ‘Erase All Content and Settings’ tab. This will delete all media and data from your iPhone.

We had covered couple of more options to wipe personal data quite sometime back, however we are not sure if those methods or apps would still work so we would request you to proceed with caution.

Option 1 - Jailbreak app Wipe App allows you to erase personal data.
Option 2 - This method can also be used to erase the personal data from your iPhone.

In case you have found a better way or strategy to sell your iPhone do let us know in the comment below for the benefit of our fellow readers. If you found this article useful, please don’t forget to leave a comment on where and for how much you finally ended up selling your old iPhone.

I also wanted to point out that existing iPhone users who were complaining that the iPhone 3G S upgrade pricing wasn’t fair can recover most of the premium or more they are paying for the latest iPhone by selling their old iPhones.

Thanks John for your email.