Price: read the entry number and what hides behind it
Refurbished phone prices split into camps. Sellers with a large trade-in pipeline start low to move volume, and sellers with tighter refurbishment standards start higher and compete on cover instead. Mozillion's entry price is £25 and Loop Mobile's is $454. Read both as device prices rather than instalments, and set them against new retail for the same model and storage tier.
The lowest figure on any store almost always belongs to the weakest unit in the cheapest grade, so an entry price is a starting point for a search, not a budget for a specific handset. Mozillion also takes trade-ins, which lowers what a swap costs you in practice, and it lists new phones, refurbished phones and foldables in the same store, so you can price one model new and refurb side by side. Loop Mobile covers refurbished phones, refurbished laptops and refurbished tablets, which shows whether its refurb pipeline is phone-led or part of a wider computer business.
Battery health: the floor decides how long the handset lasts
A condition grade describes the outside of a phone. Battery health describes the part that limits how long you keep it, because capacity erodes with use and a tired cell drives more charging stops and less screen time. Mozillion's stated minimum is 85% and Loop Mobile's is 80%. A published floor is useful because it moves the question from trust to arithmetic: you know what share of original capacity you are getting.
Compare floors rather than headline claims, and check whether the floor covers every unit or only the grade you intend to buy. Ask for the reading on the exact handset before you order, and treat a seller who cannot state it as a reason to move on.
Condition grades: how many labels do you actually need?
More grades mean more choice and more work at the point of comparison. Loop Mobile grades stock as like new, excellent and good, and asgoodasnew uses the same ladder. Mozillion lists excellent and like new, a narrower set that stops at the top bands.
A narrow ladder is easier to learn and usually means the bottom of the range is not as low, so the discount on a rough handset is smaller. Pick your grade before you compare prices, otherwise you will end up measuring a fair-condition price against an excellent-condition one. Use the Refurbished phones rankings to see how graded sellers sit against each other before you fix a band.
Warranty: length matters less than what it covers
Warranty length is the easiest number to read off a refurb listing. Mozillion offers 12 to 24 months of cover and Loop Mobile offers 12 months, a figure it also states in years at 1 year. Longer cover often tracks a stricter refurbishment standard, because the seller is standing behind the battery and the board, not only the housing.
Read the terms, not just the length. Mozillion and asgoodasnew both offer an extended warranty, so cover can be bought beyond the standard period when you want to keep a handset past the first owner. Across the market, warranty length runs 1 to 30 months, so a short warranty is not automatically a red flag and a long one is not automatically a bargain.
Returns: the window that matches your level of caution
A returns window is your correction period, so its length decides how carefully you can check a handset. Loop Mobile gives 30 days and Mozillion gives 14 days. Practice across listed refurbished sellers runs 7 to 30 days, so anything at the wide end gives you room to be thorough.
Plan the inspection inside that window: open the box, run the screen under light, test the cameras, the charging port, the buttons and the network, and confirm the battery reading matches the grade. Sellers such as refurbed and Back Market illustrate how much a longer window changes the risk calculation.
Unlocked, shipping reach and who stands behind the sale
Network lock decides whether a refurb works on the plan you are already on. Mozillion and Loop Mobile both sell unlocked handsets, so either avoids carrier SIM restrictions and leaves you free to change network later.
Next check where the seller is registered and where it ships. Mozillion trades as Mozillion Ltd from GB and serves GB, IE and AU, while Loop Mobile trades as PTS Corp (Loop Mobile) from IE and covers US, AU and GB. Trading history is another signal: asgoodasnew has been operating since 2008, and neither it nor Loop Mobile builds to order, so stock is on the shelf rather than assembled to your specification. Support reaches you at Mozillion through email, phone and help centre and at Loop Mobile through email, phone and help centre.
How to shortlist: an order of decisions that works
Work the checks in a fixed order. Fix the model and storage tier, choose the condition grade you will accept, read the battery floor that applies to that grade, then compare the prices that match it. Add warranty length and the returns window as the final filter, because those two decide what a faulty handset costs you in money and in time.
Once several sellers survive that filter, read the full write-ups instead of the headline prices: Mozillion, Loop Mobile and asgoodasnew. Placed against the rest of the market on the Refurbished phones page, they show how far each one sits from a typical refurb seller on price, cover and returns.