Need advice for an unusual MTN upgrade scenario lol

Hey guys, I'm putting some money together to buy a bunch of nexus ones, (3 so far lol) for myself, my gf and her sister. So, apart from selling both mine and my gf's old contract phones, my gf is due for an upgrade at the end of this month from MTN.

So I'm looking for advice on what phone to take on this upgrade, which we will subsequently sell immediately. I'm gonna ask that they dont open the phone when we take it. Is this possible? I know they generally open it, turn it on and off etc, I think to show you it's working. It's an upgrade so they wont have to activate a sim card or anything. So the phone will either be sealed brand new, or opened once and tested.

She was previously on a procall contract, but I see they changed to this anytime thing, and the anytime 350 gives her (R350 airtime) 179mins approx. which is fine, and I see an N97 will bring the contract to R409pm. The N97 sells new on jump for R6000 and up. She can also get any of the HTC's and blackberries etc.

So what I wanna know is, which higher end phone should we go for? What ever we get, we'll resell for like R4500 - R5000 max. Just to cover the cost of one of the Nexus'. Not sure how to guage what's in demand..

And is this worth doing? My mind is totally set on importing the nexus one's, so I definitly dont mind selling a high end phone for R4500 brand new.

Sorry for the long post Any help would be greatly appreciated thanks

also looking at getting a nexus. are you getting it via ebay? how much you gonna pay

To answer your question, they prob will wanna open the box in front of you! might as well try ask them not to!

DJNgoma on these forums is importing them, I see in his sig he's getting 5 total, I hope to be 3 of those 5 lol! They'll likely be a lil bit over R5000 each depending on the exchange rate etc.

Oh I see mtn also has a Samsung B3310+42" LCD. The LCD is Hisense. Think i'd be able to sell a 42" Full HD LCD for R4500 - R5000 lol? They sell for R9000+ but I have no idea if they're any good. But it'd be such a headache to transport and stuff..

Neverwhere, I did exactly as you're describing last week to get my Nexus One, but went for the Nokia 5800 to get a (slight) discount on the Anytime 350 contract, and because I thought the phone would sell quickly. It did - but the MTN clerk insisted on opening the box, as she said she was obliged to show me that everything was inside.

Awesome, JacquesR and if you don't mind me asking, how much did you sell the 5800 for? Also, through which channels did you order the nexus?

Neverwhere said:

Awesome, JacquesR and if you don't mind me asking, how much did you sell the 5800 for? Also, through which channels did you order the nexus?

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Sold for R2500 - wanted a quick sale, and I can't be bothered with those sorts of transactions in general (meeting strangers, etc.). But that seemed the going rate, judging by ads here and on Gumtree.

A friend in the US ordered the Nexus for me, and I paid cost (R 3900) - it's already arrived at his place, but he's only back in SA in March! So for the moment, I just read about all the things I'll be able to do, once I get it... on the plus side, there may well be a firmware update by then, so I'll be able to update before playing around with the phone.

I'm hoping to place my order by mid Feb, so I guess we'll both have nexus' in March lol. So anywho back to the main question. Anyone have any idea what phone I can sell fast for R4500? I'm looking at an N97 (so the buyer saves +-R2000) or one of the HTC's. I don't know blackberry well at all..

What phone would you guys want if you could get any phone for R4500? (From MTN's catalogue)

I also see an HTC Touch Pro 2 that I can get. Think I coud get buyers for it at R4500? I see it on Jump for anywhere from R6500 to R9000+. Where can I find the definitive South African market value?

I was contamplating something similar... I was hoping to go for a R350 contract and either:

1 - Go for the cheapest possible phone and look at the total cost of ownership;
2 - See if there were any R350 contracts with free vouchers

I am just kinda worried about the american Nexus One, is it going to work on our GSM networks? Alternatively we need to get the UK version when it is launched...