IntroductionInformative§0
Introduction
Why device grading needs one record per device and plain grade names in a fixed order.
Device grading is scattered. Each source uses its own words:
| Source | How it grades |
|---|---|
| Wholesale price sheets | A/B/C/D, with "+" and "−" meaning different things on different sheets |
| CTIA | A vector of letters and digits |
| Consumer marketplaces | Praise words that run in no fixed order. "Excellent" is the second tier on one site and the top on another. "Good" reads to most buyers as the most worn. |
A buyer cannot compare one source's grade with another's.
UGP fixes this with three ideas:
- One record, several views.
- Each device is described once, along separate axes: appearance, function, battery, locks, data, parts and accessories.
- Every audience reads its view from that same record: a buyer's grade name, a wholesale code, a machine-readable core code, and a mapping to other systems.
- A grade means "ready to resell".
- A device receives a UGP grade only when it is fully functional, has no cracks anywhere, holds at least 80% battery health, carries no account or management lock, and has been wiped.
- The grade then describes one thing only: how the device looks.
- A device that does not meet those conditions is still recorded under UGP, but it receives a status (for example "Repair" or "Encumbered") instead of a grade.
- Plain words in a fixed order, each with a test anyone can repeat.
- New Sealed, New Open Box, Like New, Very Good, Good, Acceptable.
- Each grade has a short code and a one-line test (look at arm's length; run a finger over the surface).
- A precise defect table sits behind each test.
UGP maps to the CTIA Wireless Device Grading Scales and to the major marketplaces' condition names (Annex D). It is not, and does not claim to be, any of them.