Here’s What Cheap Copy iPhone Screens Mean For You In Practice
We get emails like this all the time and they never fail to make us angry. We’ve already told you about the “copy” screens (those designed and manufactured from scratch by companies other than Apple) that many independent stores use in place of refurbished originals* without telling you the difference. This is what happens in practice:-
I have an iPhone 5 (model number A1429), it broke when I was on holiday and got it fixed abroad. The problem was with the screen so I got that replaced and the new screen seems perfectly fine except that I don’t think that it has been connected to the phone properly.
It is responsive when I press and tap but it will often not open what I pressed and instead select a bunch of other things, it’s incredibly difficult to type when messaging as it will just select a random selection of letters and numbers instead of typing what I’d like to.
The same issue affects the camera, if I press it to take a photo it often either won’t respond or end up taking up to 30 when I only intended to take one. If I press the screen in a certain way and then re-log into the phone it’ll often go back to normal for maybe 5 minutes if I’m lucky, but the issue doesn’t go away if I turn the phone off and then back on or when I restart it. Sometimes it works completely fine and can do so for a few days, but then other times it’s just not worked correctly at all for days as well.
I don’t know if you’d just be able to take the screen off and then put it back on, if that would work, or if I’d need to get a new screen. I was wondering how much it would cost, just because I’ve been thinking about getting a new phone instead as this one was 2nd hand and maybe about 4 years old and I’ve had to fix the screen 3 times already, so it would be great to get a quote on the price of this fix as soon as possible so I can maybe come in today.
Thank you very much.
[name removed for privacy]
(Highlighting and formatting is ours; click here to view the original).
The symptoms described above are typical of a low-quality “copy” LCD that the customer has most likely had fitted to their phone without being informed of this (nor offered the choice between that and a refurbished original LCD.) We’re sure that if they’d had the difference explained to them (as we do) they’d have gone for the refurbished original.
Of course, there’s a good chance that the original business didn’t offer refurb-original screens because there’s less margin on them (quite possibly because they use the cheap copy screens and charge inflated prices for them).
The customer was ready to write off their phone and buy a new one, and they’re still going to have to pay to have a new screen fitted. All because the original installer duped them with a low-quality non-original copy screen.
Remember, you can come to Disc Depot, and we’ll always offer you the choice of a high-quality, third-party-refurbished original* screen where available. (We also offer copy screens purely to remain competitive with other businesses that advertise on price, but always make the difference clear and strongly recommend the refurbs!)
* “Refurbished original” screens are those originally made by Apple and refurbished by unaffiliated third-party businesses. These are a high-quality option for users seeking a screen replacement from an independent repair store (such as ourselves) at a small fraction of the price Apple or its official affiliates would charge for one using a brand-new Apple display. (Brand-new original screens are only available for repairs through official channels such as those).
