Replacement Parts Quality

Details Matter!!!

We have been paying much closer attention to the details lately than we have been able to in the past concerning parts quality. We are proud to announce that we are working behind the screens on drastically increasing part quality. There are multiple levels of quality out there, and we want to pride ourselves on offering only the best! We are attacking this challenge by inspecting each part under a microscope. Each part comes at a higher cost, but will ultimately prevent a customer from having to come visit us again.

I have rambled on about a few examples of part quality below. I covered an iPhone screen, iPad screen, and an iPod screen. I also covered two examples of android phones we typically see daily. We look forward to increasing our level of quality, professionalism, and guarantee over the next couple of months!

iPhone 5C Screen Repair
The cleanliness of the smallest solder connections make a big difference in the end. For example, an iPhone 5C screen. The LCD and Digitizer flex cables just don't come attached to the LCD screen, they have to be soldered on. The backlight as well. The adhesive used to attached the plastic frame to the screen is a major factor in life span of the screen. The quality of glass on the screen can vary. There are companies in China that will take old broken LCD's, strip the glass and put cheaper glass back on. These screens are then re-entered into the market at a cheaper rate.

Replacing the small things. If there was a very small strip of black foam on the top of the digi/lcd connector when the phone came into us for repair, it will also be there when it leaves. We have implemented a strict quality policy to help us ensure that

iPad Screen Repair
The iPad screen repair has several different levels of quality with repair parts as well. Depending on the model of the iPad there are numerous issues you can run into when purchasing cheaper parts. If you have broken your iPad before, you probably shattered it. If you were unfortunate enough to re-break the same iPad and had it been repaired prior with a sub-par part, the device did not likely shatter. There was only a straight line crack. This is because the glass is a lot cheaper.

The glass thickness is also different across the quality of iPad repair parts. The quality with thicker glass is obvious...it is less likely to break.

iPod Screen Repair
The iPod Touch Gen 4. We see this device almost more than anything else in for repair. This is a difficult repair no matter the way you look at it. There are multiple challenges for a screen repair, a battery repair, a power button repair, a charger port repair, a camera repair, and on and on. We have increased the quality of our screen so this device is a bit less likely to break. Using the correct adhesive on these screen repairs is quite the challenge. We had found in the past that super gluing the screen down, held it down the best. Super glue was not optimal as it made the glass weaker and more prone to possibly breaking on impact. If using adhesive, we faced the challenge of the device coming back in two weeks to have the screen reseated. We have searched and searched for the best solution and have found that it comes down to just taking you time. Ensuring that the device is ABSOLUTELY 100% clean before trying to reseat the screen down is just a part of the battle. Ensuring that the frame is not bent AT ALL is also key to a perfect TG4 repair, as we call it. This is a very challenging repair, and by increasing the quality of our parts we should be able to navigate around some of the common TG4 problems that we have encountered in the past year.

LG G2 Screen Repair
We see a lot of LG G2 screens in for repair. We believe this is because when the phone was released, Verizon made it available for almost free. The LG G2 screen repair can be tricky. The trick to this repair is using the correct adhesive in the correct spots to prevent future lifting of the LCD and digitizer. Of course, disassembling the phone for a rookie technician can be quite the task as well...if you don't want to ruin anything.

Samsung Screen Repairs
Samsung screens repairs. We could operate on this facet of the business alone. Performing this repair perfectly is not just a repair, it is an art. We have worked hard over the past 6 months on perfecting a glass only repair method, and we are excited to say that we have finally mastered it. The Samsung screen is truly unique in the cell phone repair industry. It has an AMO-LED screen with a glass covering. The digitizer function is embedded into the AMO-LED. This makes the screen possible to break the glass only while still maintaining full functionality. One small break in the AMO-LED and the screen will go completely black. This does not happen to LCD's, where if there is damage you will see red, green, and blue.

A Repair vs. an Overhaul

A Repair vs. an Overhaul

“If you repair my phone is it as good as new?” “Will it be more susceptible to breaking again?” There have been a lot of questions and discussions around this topic especially from our repeat customers. So we figured it was time to shed some light on the topic. The most important thing here to understand is what a repair is and what an overhaul is; first a repair, by definition, “mends a fault in a product,” therefore a repair is reactive. On the other side there is an overhaul which is defined as “a strip down of the product to its components, cleans and reassembles it replacing any parts that may be worn with new or reconditioned parts,” an overhaul is therefore preventative.

So with these definitions in mind let’s examine the differences.  A repair is simply fixing the damage that has already been done to the device and getting it back to a functioning condition. It doesn’t necessarily do anything to help prevent breaks in the future or restore it to the condition it was in before the break. By contrast an overhaul is a more in-depth process in which the damage that was done to the device is eliminated by replacing any part that could leave it susceptible to future breaks (i.e. dented rear housing, mid-frame, etc.) 

Although we do offer both of these services a repair is usually a lot quicker and a lot less expensive. With the cost of screens on top of other hardware and labor an overhaul can get expensive very quickly and usually it isn’t cost effective because you can buy a new phone for the price it would cost to overhaul your broken phone. This is why our standard service is repair, but that does mean being more careful with your device in the future. Just like if you broke your ankle it is going to be more vulnerable to breaking in the future; so, you must use more caution to avoid this. Just like wearing a cast when you break your ankle, the best thing for protecting your phone post repair is investing in a heavy duty case. Although some of these cases can end up being bulky and feeling more like a large paper weight more so than a modern smart phone, there’s no doubt that this would help keep your phone safe from breaking again. And for those who can relate to this dilemma of not wanting a bulky phone case we would recommend a tempered glass screen protector. They only add about an eighth of an inch to the phone and are much less expensive than replacing the screen.

Written by Donley Seibel - iDoctor Technician