Most people asking what the best Black Friday phone deals are tend to be shopping for themselves. But for a founder replacing a cracked screen before a busy client season, the better question is perhaps where the deal is actually coming from. Back Market is a leading marketplace for tested refurbished electronics, and its Black Friday Deals focus on the sort of hardware that a small team needs.
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The iPhones worth checking first
Two models cover most entrepreneur use cases, particularly as they’re popular enough to easily find replacements/fixes and guides on how to optimize them. A refurbished iPhone 16 currently starts around $553 compared $729 retail price for a new unit. So, around three-quarters of the price, despite it having been tested and verified to be fully functional, with a warranty.
The discount can help fund a second device (e.g., PC monitor) or several months of software subscriptions. For anyone still working off a handset that’s starting to lag during calls or on-site meetings, a refurbished iPhone 15 Pro starts around $540. Again, you’re saving a couple of hundred bucks compared with buying new.
Where Samsung fits in
For teams standardised on Android and the Google ecosystem, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is available refurbished at similarly steep discounts (around $696, which is almost a third off some prices for new). Though, you may want to upgrade the storage and to the dual-SIM version if it’s both your work and personal phone. Back Market also charges just $27 extra for the long-lasting battery option too, so you can get through long business events and travel.
Why the discount doesn’t mean the compromise
The savings aren’t a gamble on unknown quality because each and every device sold at Back Market has a 1 year warranty and a 30-day money-back window.
Each device is sorted into one of four condition grades (Fair, Good, Excellent, Premium) with a minimum 80% battery health guaranteed regardless of which grade is chosen. That’s the important part. Ensuring a minimum floor of quality (and warranty) regardless of your pick is such a big relief for business owners – they don’t need to waste their time with due diligence, but rather base their decision on the device and price itself. Given that the upgrading cycle is even shorter among businesses than people (where it’s already under 3 years), the 20-30% off (and that’s before Black Friday sales) makes a huge difference over the years.
The business case beyond the price tag
There’s also a case an entrepreneur can make to clients or a co-founder without sounding like a sales pitch. The ADEME ran a large-scale, independent life-cycle study of refurbished tech, finding refurbished smartphones and computers to carry much less environmental impact than newly manufactured equivalents. For a growing business weighing procurement decisions against its own sustainability claims, that’s a big deal, and something that can help with reputation building.
For founders looking at where to buy a phone this Black Friday, it seems like a timely year to try refurbished given the chip shortages and extortionate RAM prices that are pushing up costs across the board. With a tested product and warranty, it’s a buying decision that makes increasing sense.
