President Donald Trump’s tariffs are causing a lot of concern and uncertainty about rising prices and new data suggests that global smartphone sales will suffer for it this year.

On Wednesday, market research firm Counterpoint released a report slashing its previous estimates for global smartphone shipments in 2025, from a 4.2% year-on-year increase down to 1.9%. While tariffs are not the only factor cited in the report, the firm primarily attributed this change to the «renewed uncertainties surrounding U.S. tariffs.»

Driving this decline in growth are dwindling outlooks for the two biggest global smartphone providers. Counterpoint cut its forecasted growth in sales for Apple from 4% to 2.5%. Tariffs or no, the company is still expected to debut a higher price later this year with the launch of its iPhone 17 line. Samsung, meanwhile, is now predicted to see sales remain stagnant, down from the previously forecast 1.7% growth.

Trump announced a barrage of tariffs in early April, causing widespread market turmoil and fear over price inflation, especially for popular tech products like smartphones. In response to those worries, the Trump administration later issued an exemption for smartphones and various other electronics, although it’s unknown if that will stick long term. 

As Counterpoint noted in its report, sales for smartphones are still expected to decline this year owing to overall decreases in consumer spending caused by tariff uncertainties. 

Representatives for Apple and Samsung did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Agents of US Customs and Border Protection are reportedly becoming more aggressive about scanning people’s personal electronic devices when they arrive in the US — even for US citizens returning from traveling abroad. Some businesses are even recommending that their employees use simple «burner» phones to keep sensitive information safe. If your plans involve a border crossing, it’s time to look into getting a burner.

But a basic phone isn’t just for travel. A phone that doesn’t include all of your personal information or has a simpler interface can be quite handy, such as cutting down on unsolicited calls or even avoiding distractions. Comedian Conan O’Brien recently praised his burner as a way to not get bogged down in instant messages and notifications.

Read more: Best Prepaid Phone of 2025

Although carriers have offered prepaid phones since the ’90s, the term «burner phones» or «burners» essentially became popular in the 2000s because of its use in the celebrated HBO series The Wire, in which characters use burner phones to avoid getting caught by the police. Although often portrayed as such, burners are not only popular among criminals. With privacy concerns rising, you might consider using a burner phone yourself.

So, what exactly is a burner phone and how does it work? Below, we explain everything you need to know about burners and how to get one.

What is a burner phone?

Simply put, a burner phone is a cheap prepaid phone with no commitments. It comes with a set number of prepaid call minutes, text messages or data and is designed to be disposed of after use.

Burners are contract-free, and you can grab them off the counter. They’re called burner phones because you can «burn» them, i.e., trash them after use, and the phone cannot be traced back to you, which makes them appealing to criminals. Burner phones are typically used when you need a phone quickly, without intentions of long-term usage. 

Burners are different from getting a regular, contract-bound cellphone plans that require a lot of your information to be on file.

Why should you use a burner phone?

Burner phones are an easy way to avoid pesky cellphone contracts or spam that you may be getting on your primary phone number. Burners are not linked to your identity so you can avoid getting tracked down or contacted if that’s what you need.

However, you don’t have to dispose of it after use — you can just add more minutes and continue using it. Burner phones can still function as regular phones, minus the hassle of getting a phone with a contract.

You can also get a burner phone as a secondary phone for a specific purpose, like having a spare phone number for two-factor authentication texts, for business purposes or to avoid roaming charges while traveling. You can get a burner phone for any privacy reasons you may have.

Read more: The Data Privacy Tips Digital Security Experts Wish You Knew

Burner phones, prepaid phones, smartphones and burner SIMs: What’s the difference? 

Burner phones are typically cheap feature phones and usually don’t come with the bells and whistles of a smartphone. Because these are designed to be cheap and disposable, you only get the essentials and very simple designs. The flip phone is a common sight in the burner phone market.

All burner phones are prepaid phones but not all prepaid phones are burners. What sets a burner apart is that you will not have to give away any personal information to get one and it won’t be traceable back to you. Also, it will be cheap enough to be trashed after use.

Prepaid smartphones are generally low-end models to begin with and burners are the cheapest prepaid phones you can get. However, you can use any unlocked smartphone with prepaid SIM cards if you want to, essentially making it a prepaid phone.

If you want to get a burner, you don’t necessarily have to buy a new phone. You can get a burner SIM and use it with an existing phone as well. Burner SIMs are prepaid SIMs you can get without a contract or giving away personal information.

Where can you buy a burner phone?

Burner phones are available at all major retail outlets. You can pick them up from Best Buy, Target, Walmart and other big retailers. They’re also often available at convenience stores like 7-Eleven and Rite Aid, local supermarkets, gas stations and retail phone outlets like Cricket, Metro and others.

You can get a burner phone with cash; a typical burner should cost between $10 and $50. It may cost more if you get more minutes and data with the phone. If you’re getting a burner phone specifically to avoid having the phone traced back to you, it makes sense to pay with cash instead of a credit card.

If you just want a prepaid secondary phone, you can pay for one with a credit card. Credit cards will leave a paper trail that leads back to you but that shouldn’t be an issue unless you really don’t want the burner phone linked back to you.

There are also many apps that let you get secondary phone numbers, including Google Fi and the Burner app. However, these cannot quite be called burners in the ideal sense because these providers will typically have at least some of your personal information.

If you’re just looking to get a solid prepaid phone without anonymity, you can check out our full guide for the best prepaid phone plans available currently. We also have a guide for the best cheap phone plans you can get.

CNET is keeping tabs on several popular products on a daily basis, watching for price hikes amid President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda. So far, most prices have remained stable, aside from a notable increase for the Xbox Series X, while a few products are currently cheaper than usual, such as batteries and popular portable charger. With all that said, the broader impacts of these import taxes are still on the horizon, unless the Supreme Court upholds a lower court ruling against them.

Late last Wednesday evening, the three-judge panel at the New York-based US Court of International Trade ruled that Trump had overstepped the bounds of his executive branch authority with his wide-ranging tariff policy, effectively nullifying it for the time being. The court explained that Congress, with its «power of the purse,» has the primary authority to impose tariffs and that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 — which Trump has used to justify his ability to impose them — does not grant the president «unlimited» authority on tariffs. By Thursday, an appeals court allowed to tariffs to resume while the administration seeks a final reversal of the original ruling from the Supreme Court.

The Trump administration has, unsurprisingly, decried this ruling and moved swiftly to request that the Supreme Court strike it down. We’ll see how that ultimately plays out but, for now, the possibility that the president’s tariff policies will lead to price hikes remains likely. That’s why I’m continuing to monitor several key products you might want or need to buy soon, to keep track of the potential tariff impacts.

CNET Tariff Tracker Index

Above, you can check out a chart with the average price of the 11 products included in this piece over the course of 2025. This will help give you a sense of the overall price changes and fluctuations going on. Further down, you’ll be able to check out charts for each individual product being tracked.

In the past few weeks, Trump ramped up his clashes with companies over their reactions to his tariff agenda. For starters, he demanded that Walmart — the largest grocery chain in the US — eat the cost of the new import taxes after the company said its prices would go up by the summer because of his import taxes. To close out last week, he threatened Apple with a 25% duty on its products if it didn’t plan to move manufacturing to the US, a prospect that has been widely dismissed as a fantasy. As I’ve written about before on CNET, despite these attacks from Trump, the reality of tariffs is that they will almost certainly raise everyday prices and won’t bring much manufacturing stateside.

We’ll be updating this article regularly as prices change. It’s all in the name of helping you make sense of things so be sure to check back every so often. For more, check out CNET’s guide to whether you should wait to make big purchases or buy them now and get expert tips about how to prepare for a recession.

Methodology

We’re checking prices daily and will update the article and the relevant charts right away to reflect any changes. The following charts show a single bullet point for each month, with the most recent one labeled «Now» and showing the current price. For the past months, we’ve gone with what was the most common price for each item in the given month. 

In most cases, the price stats used in these graphs were pulled from Amazon using the historical price-tracker tool Keepa. For the iPhones, the prices come from Apple’s official materials and are based on the 128-gigabyte base model of the latest offering for each year: the iPhone 14, iPhone 15 and iPhone 16. For the Xbox Series X, the prices were sourced from Best Buy using the tool PriceTracker. If any of these products happen to be on sale at a given time, we’ll be sure to let you know and explain how those price drops differ from longer-term pricing trends that tariffs can cause.

The 11 products we’re tracking

Mostly what we’re tracking in this article are electronic devices and digital items that CNET covers in depth, like iPhones and affordable 4K TVs — along with a typical bag of coffee, a more humble product that isn’t produced in the US to any significant degree. 

The products featured were chosen for a few reasons: Some of them are popular and/or affordable representatives for major consumer tech categories, like smartphones, TVs and game consoles. Others are meant to represent things that consumers might buy more frequently, like printer ink or coffee beans. Some products were chosen over others because they are likely more susceptible to tariffs. Some of these products have been reviewed by CNET or have been featured in some of our best lists.

• iPhone 16, 128GB
• Duracell AA batteries, 24-pack
• Samsung DU7200 65-inch TV
• Xbox Series X
• Apple AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C case
• HP 962 CMY Printer Ink
• Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank
• Bose TV speaker
• Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush
• Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook, 256GB
• Starbucks 28-ounce ground dark roast coffee

Below, we’ll get into more about each individual product, and stick around till the end for a rundown of some other products worth noting.

iPhone 16

The iPhone is the most popular smartphone brand in the US, so this was a clear priority for price tracking. The iPhone has also emerged as a major focal point for conversations about tariffs, given its popularity and its susceptibility to import taxes because of its overseas production, largely in China. Trump has reportedly been fixated on the idea that the iPhone can and should be manufactured in the US, an idea that experts have dismissed as a fantasy. Estimates have also suggested that a US-made iPhone would cost as much as $3,500.

Something to note about this graph: The price listed is the one you’ll see if you buy your phone through a major carrier. If you, say, buy direct from Apple or Best Buy without a carrier involved, you’ll be charged an extra $30, so in some places, you might see the list price of the standard iPhone 16 listed as $830.

Apple has made several moves this year to protect its prices in the US as much as possible, like flying in bulk shipments of product ahead of the tariffs taking effect and working to move production for the American market from China to India, where tariff rates are less severe. This latter move provoked a response from Trump, given his noted fixation on the iPhone, saying last week that he «had a little problem» with Tim Cook over the move, claiming without evidence that the Apple CEO pledged to bring more manufacturing to the US. Cook and others close to the company for years say that the supply chains for its products are too complex to move manufacturing entirely to the US. 

This week, Trump further threatened a 25% penalty rate against Apple products if it did not move manufacturing to the US. How that will play out is still unclear, but notably, foreign-made iPhones with 25% tax would still probably be much cheaper than iPhones predominantly made in the US.

Duracell AA batteries

A lot of the tech products in your home might boast a rechargeable energy source but individual batteries are still an everyday essential and I can tell you from experience that as soon as you forget about them, you’ll be needing to restock. The Duracell AAs we’re tracking are some of the bestselling batteries on Amazon.

Samsung DU7200 TV

Alongside smartphones, televisions are some of the most popular tech products out there, even if they’re an infrequent purchase. This particular product is a popular entry-level 4K TV and was CNET’s pick for best overall budget TV for 2025. Unlike a lot of tech products that have key supply lines in China, Samsung is a South Korean company so it might have some measure of tariff resistance. 

Xbox Series X

Video game software and hardware are a market segment expected to be hit hard by the Trump tariffs. Microsoft’s Xbox is the first console brand to see price hikes — the company cited «market conditions» along with the rising cost of development. Most notably, this included an increase in the price of the flagship Xbox Series X, up from $500 to $600. Numerous Xbox accessories also were affected and the company also said that «certain» games will eventually see a price hike from $70 to $80.

Initially, we were tracking the price of the much more popular Nintendo Switch as a representative of the gaming market. Nintendo has not yet hiked the price of its handheld-console hybrid and stressed that the $450 price tag of the upcoming Switch 2 has not yet been inflated because of tariffs. Sony, meanwhile, has so far only increased prices on its PlayStation hardware in markets outside the US.

AirPods Pro 2

The latest iteration of Apple’s wildly popular true-wireless earbuds are here to represent the headphone market. Much to the chagrin of the audiophiles out there, a quick look at sales charts on Amazon shows you just how much the brand dominates all headphone sales. Earlier in the year, they tended to hover around $199 on the site, a notable discount from its $249 list price. In the past month, however, its gotten closer to that price on Amazon, so if you’re looking to buy a pair, you might want to consider doing it sooner rather than later.

HP 962 CMY printer ink

This HP printer ink includes cyan, magenta and yellow all in one product and recently saw its price jump from around $72 — where it stayed for most of 2025 — to $80, which is around its highest price over the last five years. We will be keeping tabs to see if this is a long-term change or a brief uptick.

This product replaced Overture PLA Filament for 3D printers in this piece, but we’re still tracking that item.

Anker 10,000-mAh, 30-watt power bank

Anker’s accessories are perennially popular in the tech space and the company has already announced that some of its products will get more expensive as a direct result of tariffs. This specific product has also been featured in some of CNET’s lists of the best portable chargers. While the price has remained steady throughout the year, it is currently on sale for $13, or 50% off, for a limited time.

Bose TV speaker

Soundbars have become important purchases, given the often iffy quality of the speakers built into TVs. While not the biggest or the best offering in the space, the Bose TV Speaker is one of the more affordable soundbar options out there, especially hailing from a brand as popular as Bose. This product has been one of the steadiest on this list in terms of price throughout the year, but it’s currently on sale for $199, potentially as part of Amazon’s Memorial Day sale. So, if you’re looking for an affordable, tariff-free TV speaker, now might be the time.

Oral-B Pro 1000 electric toothbrush

They might be a lot more expensive than their traditional counterparts but electric toothbrushes remain a popular choice for consumers because of how well they get the job done. I know my dentist won’t let up on how much I need one. This particular Oral-B offering was CNET’s overall choice for the best electric toothbrush for 2025.

Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook

Lenovo is notable among the big laptop manufacturers for being a Chinese company making its products especially susceptible to Trump’s tariffs.

Starbucks Ground Coffee (28-ounce bag)

Coffee is included in this tracker because of its ubiquity —I’m certainly drinking too much of it these days —and because it’s uniquely susceptible to Trump’s tariff agenda. Famously, coffee beans can only be grown within a certain distance from Earth’s equator, a tropical span largely outside the US and known as the «Coffee Belt.» 

Hawaii is the only part of the US that can produce coffee beans, with data from USAFacts showing that 11.5 million pounds were harvested there in the 2022-23 season — little more than a drop in the mug, as the US consumed 282 times that amount of coffee during that period. Making matters worse, Hawaiian coffee production has declined in the past few years.

All that to say: Americans get almost all of their coffee from overseas, making it one of the most likely products to see price hikes from tariffs.

Other Products

As mentioned before, we occasionally swap out products with different ones that undergo notable price shifts. Here are some things no longer featured above, but that we’re still keeping an eye on:

• Nintendo Switch: The baseline handheld-console hybrid has held steady around $299 most places — including Amazon — since it released in 2017. Whether or not that price will be impacted by tariffs or the impending release of the Switch 2 remains to be seen. This product was replaced above with the Xbox Series X.
• Overture PLA 3D printer filament: This is a popular choice on Amazon for the material needed to run 3D printers. It has held steady around $15 on Amazon all year. This product was replaced above by the HP 962 printer ink.

Here are some products we also wanted to single out that haven’t been featured with a graph yet:

• Razer Blade 18 (2025), 5070 Ti edition: The latest revision of Razer’s largest gaming laptop saw a $300 price bump recently, with the base model featured an RTX 5070 Ti graphics card now priced at $3,500 ahead of launch, compared to the $3,200 price announced in February. While Razer has stayed mum about the reasoning, it did previously suspend direct sales to the US as Trump’s tariff plans were ramping up in April.