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14-day lock
Offer holds when description matches.
48-hr processing
Two business days from arrival to confirmed offer.
Free shipping
Prepaid USPS label in your inbox.
BBB 4.69
Ten years. Same Phoenix team.
SELL YOUR GALAXY NOTE 9
A Galaxy Note 9 is worth $9 to $68. That is not a big number and we are not going to dress it up. This is a 2018 phone. It is still real money for something living in a drawer, and the quote takes a minute.
Most people call it a trade-in. We call it a Buyback, and here's why the price is different. A carrier pays you in credit you can only spend with them. We buy the phone, check it ourselves, and pay you in money.
The S Pen first, since it is the thing people forget. It lives in a slot in the bottom of the phone. Slide it back in before the phone goes in the box. It was sold as part of the Note 9 rather than as a spare, and a phone that gets here without its pen is quoted lower than the same phone with the pen in place.
Now look at the top of the screen, just left of the front camera. There are two more small windows there. One is a camera that reads your eyes and the other is the infrared light that lets it work in the dark. That is the iris scanner, and the Galaxy Note 9 is the last phone Samsung ever built with one. The Galaxy S10 arrived six months later without it and it never came back.
Two things follow from that, and both are worth money to you. The first: those windows are meant to be there. They are not chips, they are not scratches, and nobody has drilled your phone. People see them under a bright light and talk themselves into a lower grade. Do not.
The second: it is a piece of hardware, and hardware fails. Our Samsung rule is a principle rather than a checklist. If something on the phone does not do its job, the phone grades Faulty, and that includes a scanner most people stopped using years ago. Open Settings, Biometrics and security, and try registering your irises. If it will not read them, the phone is Faulty even though everything else about it is fine. Better you know now than after you have posted it.
Where to sell a Galaxy Note 9, what a used one is worth, whether anyone still buys a broken one: yes, and the numbers are in the table. Shipping is free and so is getting it back if you change your mind.
LIVE PRICES
The used resale value of a Galaxy Note 9 runs from $9 for a cracked 128GB to $68 for a sealed 512GB.
Pulled live from our own price feed, for unlocked phones. Small numbers on a phone this old, but they are real ones.
| Comparison row | 128GB | 512GB |
|---|---|---|
Brand New | $57 | $68 |
Flawless | $57 | $68 |
Good | $47 | $55 |
Average | $39 | $46 |
Fair | $28 | $33 |
Faulty | $9 | $11 |
HOW IT WORKS
Pick 128GB or 512GB, your carrier and your grade. Try the iris scanner and the fingerprint pad on the back before you choose, because either one failing changes the answer. The price you accept is locked for 14 days.
We email a prepaid USPS label. Take your Google account off the phone and factory reset it, then open the tray and lift out the SIM and the memory card. Pen back in the slot. The phone travels on its own.
We check it within 48 hours of arrival and tell you what we found. If it matches your description, payment leaves the same day, by gift card, PayPal, bank transfer or check. Every phone is wiped to Department of Defense standards either way.
SPEC SHEET
Model number is in Settings, About phone. SM-N960 is the Note 9. SM-N970 or higher means you have a Note 10 and the prices are different.
| Samsung's name for it | Galaxy Note9 |
|---|---|
| Year | 2018, announced August 9 and on sale August 24 |
| US model numbers | SM-N960U and SM-N960U1 |
| Screen | 6.4 inch Super AMOLED, 2960 by 1440, curved at both edges, HDR10 |
| Glass | Gorilla Glass 5 front and back, aluminum frame |
| Chip | Snapdragon 845 in the US, Exynos 9810 elsewhere |
| Memory and storage we buy | 128GB with 6GB RAM, and 512GB with 8GB RAM |
| Memory card | Yes, microSD in the SIM tray |
| Rear cameras | 12MP wide with an aperture that physically switches between f/1.5 and f/2.4, plus a 12MP telephoto at 2x |
| Front camera | 8MP, with a separate 2MP iris camera beside it |
| Iris scanner | Yes. The Note 9 is the last Samsung phone that had one. |
| Fingerprint reader | On the back, below the cameras |
| Battery | 4000 mAh, wireless charging supported |
| Size and weight | 161.9 by 76.4 by 8.8 mm, 201 g |
| Headphone jack | 3.5 mm |
| Colors | Ocean Blue, Midnight Black, Lavender Purple and Metallic Copper all pay the same |
GALAXY NOTE 9 BUYBACK QUESTIONS
Most Note 9s that reach us are Fair, which means heavy wear you can feel with a fingernail but nothing cracked or chipped. That is $28 for a 128GB and $33 for a 512GB. A cleaner one goes higher, up the column in the table. The quote box gives you your own number.
The iris scanner. One window is a small camera that reads the pattern in your eyes and the other is an infrared light so it can do that in the dark. They came with the phone and they are not damage. Nothing about them lowers your grade, and we would rather say so than have you tick Faulty over a design feature.
It does. Our Samsung rule is one principle rather than a list of parts: anything on the phone that does not do its job makes the phone Faulty, and the iris scanner counts even though hardly anybody uses it now. Test it in Settings, Biometrics and security, by registering your irises and unlocking once. If it will not read your eyes, choose Faulty when you quote. It is not the answer anyone wants, but it is the honest one and you will get the price you were quoted.
Play a video with the volume up and listen to both speakers. Press every button twice, including the one that used to be Bixby. Open the camera, switch to the telephoto lens, then try Pro mode and change the aperture from f/1.5 to f/2.4. On this phone the blades physically move, so if the picture does not change brightness something is stuck. Put a finger on the pad below the cameras and unlock the phone. Plug the charger in and move the cable around. Anything that fails there is a Faulty phone.
Yes. Cracks and chips send a phone to Faulty on their own, no matter how well it works, and Faulty is still a price: $9 for a 128GB and $11 for a 512GB. The back on this one is glass as well as the front, so check both. Tick Faulty at the quote step and the number holds when we open the box.
Send the phone and say so when you quote. The pen has its own slot in the body of a Note 9 and it was part of the phone, not an accessory bought alongside it, so a Note 9 that reaches us without one is quoted lower than the same phone with it. Ten minutes hunting for the pen is usually ten minutes well spent.
Probably, and burn-in makes a phone Faulty. This screen is OLED and it is eight years old, which is the worst combination for it. Check properly before you decide: brightness up, plain white image, dim room, and look for the ghost of a clock at the top or navigation buttons at the bottom. The careful version of the test, with a mid gray pass and the two things people mistake for burn-in, is on our Galaxy S23 Plus page.
No. There is no battery percentage rule on Samsung phones here. You will not be asked for a health figure and there is no screen on a Note 9 that shows one. An eight year old battery is an eight year old battery. If it has stopped working altogether, that is the functionality rule doing its job, same as any other failed part.
Look at the back. The Note 9 has the fingerprint pad below the camera bar, so your finger lands on the sensor instead of the lens. On the Note 8 the sensor sits beside the cameras, which is why everybody smudged the glass. The model number confirms it: SM-N960 is the Note 9 and SM-N950 is the Note 8.
Not while it is locked. A phone signed in to a Google account keeps factory reset protection on, nobody else can set it up, and there is no grade that gets around that. Remove the account in Settings, Accounts and backup, then factory reset. A tripped Knox counter is the same, and so is anything reported lost or stolen, blacklisted or blocked by a carrier.
Not until the balance is cleared. Anything on an installment plan or a lease is under a financial obligation, and we do not purchase devices under financial obligations. Settle it, own it, then quote it.
Not a sale, but two free ones. We cannot test a dead phone and we cannot clear your data off it, so there is no price we could honestly put on it. Send it in on a free label and we will recycle it properly after a Department of Defense grade wipe, or ask for it back and we return it free.
Back up anything you want. Remove your Google account under Settings, Accounts and backup, Manage accounts. Then Settings, General management, Reset, Factory data reset. Your photos, messages and saved passwords are erased and they cannot be recovered. Take the memory card out of the tray, because it holds your photos too and it will not find its way back to you. There is a walkthrough on our erase your device page.
Straight answer: this is a small amount of money. The range on this page tops out at $68 and most phones land well under that. But a Note 9 in a drawer is worth nothing at all, it loses a little more every month it sits there, and the postage costs you nothing either way. If it is too far gone to carry a price we will recycle it free and wipe it first. Both of those beat the drawer.
Pick one of four when you check out. Gift cards are emailed and land about 3 percent higher because the brands add a bonus. PayPal is instant, less PayPal's 2.99 percent. A bank transfer takes 2 to 4 days and a check 3 to 5. They all go out on the day your phone clears inspection. Sealed, never activated phones are the only exception and they are paid by PayPal alone.
Storage, carrier, grade, about a minute. We hold whatever you accept for 14 days.
FREE SHIPPING / 14-DAY PRICE LOCK / PAID SAME DAY