This is actually quite an interesting article. I never thought that much about using old phones. For some reason I was thinking about people using their personal device or purchasing phones specifically for mining. It's quite interesting that it was actually Samsung itself that did it. I'm sure they have the most access to phones. Haha. They said that 8 Galaxy S5 phones could mine better than a standard desktop computer. It still seems like it would take a long time to get more value out of the phones than you could sell them on eBay. Using old phones for different projects is really cool though. I liked the fish tank bit at the end of the article.
And 8x Galaxy S5 costs? It costs way more than a standard desktop computer. And to think that you can only get them in secondhand, it's going to die rather quickly. Why do people keep on pushing the mining with Smartphone idea when you can just build a PC for mining if you wanna mine bitcoins? I mean I get the idea that it's cool to mine with something that we already have but even if it's become possible, it's just not worth destroying your phone for something that you think is cool.
Well, I still don't think it's that practical, but S5s may cost less than you think. I'm not pushing the idea, but I do think it's an interesting one. There are millions of phone that eventually just get thrown out, when they could be used for something productive. There actually are some new S5s still for sale, but that would certainly not be an effective use of your money (they seem to go for about $200). I check used S5s on eBay though and they're selling for $60-130. Most are going for around $60. So, for $480 you could have 8 of those phones. I would say that's a bit less than a decent desktop computer, though I know you can get them cheaper. I see that some S5s with broken screens have been selling for about $30. I don't know exactly how a phone mining system would work, but I feel like having the screen work is not actually critical. Thus, perhaps you could get 8 S5s with broken screens for $240. If they could make you even $30/month, it would just take 8 months to get your money back. As far as I know, the most common thing to go on phones is the battery. If you are always working on direct power, then you wouldn't have to worry about the batteries.