Value retention league 2025: which 2025 phones hold their value best?
All 2025 phones we track, ranked by value retention — launch price versus live used-market medians, updated as listings change.
2025 Value retention league
28 phones · ranked by value kept per year · median depreciation 48%/yr
The newest cohort, ranked
Phones released in 2025 are the freshest entries in the used market, and their league answers a specific question: which of the current generation is the market already treating as the safe bet? Early retention is noisy — some models see brief spikes from scarcity, others dip while launch supply works through the channel. That is precisely why we recompute this table from live listings rather than publishing a one-time verdict: the early signal firms up week by week, and the ranking you see reflects the market as it stands now.
How retention is measured here
Each row compares the model's official launch price with the current median of used listings, yielding an annualized retention rate and a depreciation slope. For a young cohort, the slope deserves particular attention: two models can show similar retention today while diverging sharply in where they will sit next year, and the slope is the leading indicator of that divergence. The used median column grounds the whole exercise in what these phones actually trade for.
What early-league position tells you
Ranking highly this early in the lifecycle is meaningful — it means resale demand is strong even before the first wave of upgrades hits the market. Typically these are models with proven lineage, predictable successor cadence and launch pricing the market considered fair. Models lower in the table are not necessarily worse phones; more often their launch price was ambitious relative to what buyers re-encounter used. The linked reviews carry the full analysis for each case.
Should you buy from the newest league
Buying a nearly-new phone from this cohort means paying a premium over older generations in exchange for the longest software runway and the least accumulated wear. The retention column helps you pick within the generation: models the market expects to hold value are usually the ones worth paying that premium for. For the cheaper route, the 2024 league offers most of the hardware at a lower entry point, and the all-years league shows the full field for calibration.