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The iPhone Duo costs $1,999. Here’s what the same money buys refurbished

Apple announced its first foldable on September 9. It starts at $1,999 and runs to $3,199. We checked what that money buys on the second-hand market instead.

By Bryan Sloan · Published 12 September 2026 · Editorially independent · we may earn commission on some links

Apple unveiled the iPhone Duo at its September event on the 9th, its first foldable and the biggest change to the iPhone in nearly twenty years. It has a 5.4-inch display closed and a 7.6-inch display open, dual batteries, an under-display selfie camera, a vapor chamber for cooling and the new A20 Pro chip. Pre-orders open October 16 and it goes on sale October 23 across more than 70 countries.

It starts at $1,999 for 256GB. Four storage tiers run up to 2TB, and the top configuration reaches $3,199 — the memory alone accounts for a $1,200 spread.

The rest of the range went up too

The Duo was not the only price rise. The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max both launched $100 above last year's equivalents, at $1,199 and $1,299. Apple raised base prices across the line, with the increase growing at higher storage tiers — the 1TB Pro is around $300 more than the previous generation's. Mac and iPad prices had already gone up over the summer.

The company's stated reason is the one we wrote about two weeks ago: memory and storage costs have soared as AI data centers absorb the world's supply. We explained the mechanism here — high-bandwidth memory earns chipmakers several times more per wafer than the DRAM that goes into phones, so capacity moved, and everything with memory in it costs more. A foldable has two displays, two batteries and a hinge. It is the most component-heavy phone Apple has ever built, launched into the worst component market in a decade.

What $1,999 buys refurbished

These are the cheapest prices on our Best Buys page, verified against each seller's live listing on August 28, 2026.

A phone, a second flagship phone, a laptop and a tablet — $131 under the price of one Duo. Or, if you only want a phone: the Duo costs about the same as four refurbished iPhone 16s at $510, seven iPhone 15s at $279, or eight iPhone 14s at $248.

The number nobody quotes: what it will be worth

This is where our own data is more useful than a spec sheet. We track what flagships actually sell for once they reach the second-hand market, and the curve is consistent.

Against the new prices we track, a refurbished iPhone 16 is running about 30% below new, and a four-year-old iPhone 14 about 60% below. Those are ordinary numbers for a flagship. Applied to $1,999 they stop being ordinary: roughly $600 of value gone in the first couple of years and about $1,200 by year four. Depreciation is proportional, so the more expensive the phone, the more expensive the depreciation.

So is it worth it?

There is a real case for buying one. It is Apple's first foldable, it collapses a phone and a small tablet into one device, and if you have wanted that in an iPhone you have waited nearly two decades for it. Nothing in the refurbished market does what it does.

The case against is not really about the Duo. It is about what a first-generation folding mechanism means: a hinge and an inner display are moving parts with a service life, the under-display camera is unproven in daily use, and out-of-warranty repair on a foldable has historically cost considerably more than on a slab phone. Buying generation one of any folding device means paying the most for the least-proven version, and carrying the depreciation on $1,999 while you do.

Our honest read: if you want it because it is new and folding, buy it — that is a legitimate reason and no amount of arithmetic will change it. If you are weighing it as value, the numbers are not close. Wait for the second generation, let the first wave of hinges tell you what they are going to tell you, and in the meantime a refurbished flagship at a quarter of the price does everything except fold.

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