No flawless iPhone 5s?

[richard13]

So, I'm on my 2nd iPhone 5 in as many days. Yesterday's had a some minor scratches and a loose power button. Today's has more noticeable scratches but at least a solid power button. Before I get too obsessed here with multiple returns and possible loss of my sanity I'm wondering if these are just they way they are and that there are no actual, real, perfect specimens of this product?

I mean, is it even realistic to expect there to be no defects on a product that is meant to be as shiny and flashy as the iPhone 5?

I remind myself that I had no problems whatsoever with my iPhone 3G and iPhone 4. But then again, there was a lot less non-glass reflective surface on those.

I'm trying hard not to give up hope and will try again tomorrow but I don't know what I'll do if I'm disappointed again. Is there a certain level of minor defects I should just accept and move on?

I haven't even gotten to the functionality of this phone yet. Hopefully there's no problems there.

Thanks for your help and advice.

[MattMJB0188]

There is NO such thing as a flawless iphone 5. No one has one. They all have some issue or another, it's just that people don't know they're really issues. Some iphones have rattling sleep wake buttons, that's a fact.

My iphone 5 is fine but not flawless. I actually went looking for issues when I got it. Only thing I could find wrong was a very, very slight scratch on the screen. I'm just dealing with it as everything else is fine. No point in returning it and getting one thats worse.

[Cripps]

Originally Posted by MattMJB0188

There is NO such thing as a flawless iphone 5. No one has one. They all have some issue or another, it's just that people don't know they're really issues. Some iphones have rattling sleep wake buttons, that's a fact. ...

This is a very negative view.
I know a fair bit about iPhones and can assure the OP that my phone, purchased as a pre-order, has no flaws whatsoever.
That is, it conforms to all of Apple's specifications and parameters.

[vampyr]

Originally Posted by MattMJB0188

There is NO such thing as a flawless iphone 5. No one has one.

LOL! That's not true... I had a flawless iPhone 5. Absolutely nothing was wrong with it... absolutely PERFECT.

But I decided to take the wrapping off the box and open it. Flawless no more....

[ixodes]

Sadly your only reasonable approach is to collapse your expectations. Apple cannot meet them. The iPhone 5 is one of the lowest quality iPhones. I know, I had 4. Gave up & went back to my 4S, only to discover how much it outshines the 5.

I just chalked it up to a bad release from Apple, they can't all be great. There's always next year. No worries.

[Beeplance]

I'm quite sure there are flawless iPhone 5s out here. Many people are contented with their iPhone 5 working perfectly well. And let's not be so pessimistic as to say that ALL iPhone 5s have some flaw in one aspect or another, I don't think this should be the case.

[pachecorigo]

I have a flawless iPhone 5, no scratches no rattling sleep wake button. No problems since day 1 battery life is good, I have owes the the 4 and 4s this is the best one yet!

[sectime]

My first Black one was flawless, but the ear speaker was blown right out of the box. Second black one was flawless, but ran very hot and had poor reception, tech support wanted to replace it. I did with my Galaxy S3. Would have gone back to my 4s but i admit being addicted to LTE. Maybe next year

[Minhthien]

My first iphone 5 had a speaker problems where when you play music its will started to fade in and out. Apple exchange for a new one and the problem is still there!

[timidhermit]

I, too, wondered about this.

To those who claimed to have a flawless looking phone, is the phone truly flawless or is the user simply not looking hard enough?

For example, there are frequently blemishes on the chamfered edges that many users simply overlook. Do those count? In my case, I had a phone in case the scratches were all on the junction where the case meets the front glass (this is not the chamfered edges).

Some people had recommended looking at the phone under different lighting conditions (seriously, you can search for that thread) because the flaws only show up under bright lights. Do those count?

[sectime]

Originally Posted by timidhermit

I, too, wondered about this.

To those who claimed to have a flawless looking phone, is the phone truly flawless or is the user simply not looking hard enough?

For example, there are frequently blemishes on the chamfered edges that many users simply overlook. Do those count? In my case, I had a phone in case the scratches were all on the junction where the case meets the front glass (this is not the chamfered edges).

Some people had recommended looking at the phone under different lighting conditions (seriously, you can search for that thread) because the flaws only show up under bright lights. Do those count?

I looked at my friend's 5 under a scanning electron microscope at work. Told him to return it right now. My god man, the defects were obvious
How hard should we look to satisfy OCD?

----------

Originally Posted by MattMJB0188

There is NO such thing as a flawless XXXX.

Pretty much sums up the entire universe, focus on imperfection and Boom there it is, deal with it.

[Bako-MacAddict]

Not a good picture at all, lol. Taken with my iPhone 4. But I assure you this phone is in pristine condition and just picked up a week ago.

[timidhermit]

Sorry, but I am going to call you out on this one.

The electron beam from the scanning EM will fire the circuits in the phone even in low power. So unless your friend is extremely generous and is willing to brick a phone (or at lest take the phone apart so you are only scanning the case without the electronics inside), this is just a tale.

Originally Posted by sectime

I looked at my friend's 5 under a scanning electron microscope at work. Told him to return it right now. My god man, the defects were obvious
How hard should we look to satisfy OCD?

----------


Pretty much sums up the entire universe, focus on imperfection and Boom there it is, deal with it.

[richard13]

I had no idea this thread would have grown this much and generate such discussion. Thank you all for giving your opinions!

My story seems to have reached an end, at least for now, and thankfully so.

I went back to the Apple Store yesterday with the same complaint about scratches but this time I was treated a little differently. Previously they just gave me a new phone sealed in a retail box. Now I was told that they would let me choose from 3 white box phones. Considering my bad luck with the retail boxes I was interested to try this approach. I was then told, however, that this was it. I had to choose from these and that there would be no further exchanges. I was a little miffed at being put in this position. Even if it was my intention to keep the phone I didn't appreciate being talked to in this manner, as if I was some problem for them that they wanted to get rid of.

And of course, none of the three was flawless. In the end, I chose the one with the least amount of damage (actually I only noticed one scratch on the bottom of the ring).

On the whole this experience has left me feeling a bit disappointed in Apple. First, that out of 5 phones I was offered, all of them had scratches and/or nicks and then the poor customer service experience on the 2nd exchange. But my hope here is that I can now get past this unpleasantness, that there are no functional problems with the phone (I don't anticipate any), and that I will enjoy my new phone.

[Prime85]

I have purchased 3 iPhone 5's and all three have been flawless. I really don't understand how so many people could be having these problems. It is probably all BS. Bought a 16gb for my wife, 32gb for me but I returned it for a 64gb but all three were in perfect condition! No scratches or imperfections of any kind.

[dictoresno]

Originally Posted by Prime85

I have purchased 3 iPhone 5's and all three have been flawless. I really don't understand how so many people could be having these problems. It is probably all BS. Bought a 16gb for my wife, 32gb for me but I returned it for a 64gb but all three were in perfect condition! No scratches or imperfections of any kind.

mine as well was perfect, no real defects at all. and it seems like its so flawed because of the hundreds of thousands sold, only the people with issues come to complain about them im sure if you tallied up the total which came out perfect vs the total messed up it will show how one sided it seems.

[SWPROX]

Originally Posted by ixodes

Sadly your only reasonable approach is to collapse your expectations. Apple cannot meet them. The iPhone 5 is one of the lowest quality iPhones. I know, I had 4. Gave up & went back to my 4S, only to discover how much it outshines the 5.

I just chalked it up to a bad release from Apple, they can't all be great. There's always next year. No worries.

I have seen your posts,constantly speaking negative for iPhone and Macs,Give it a break dude ! And really how much the 4S outshines 5-LOL !

Originally Posted by Prime85

I have purchased 3 iPhone 5's and all three have been flawless. I really don't understand how so many people could be having these problems. It is probably all BS. Bought a 16gb for my wife, 32gb for me but I returned it for a 64gb but all three were in perfect condition! No scratches or imperfections of any kind.

Yup,same here,2 iPhone 5's,one black and one white-both FLAWLESS

[Psycho Mantis]

Picked up a black & slate a few hours ago... totally flawless

[aphexacid]

For as many problems as the iphones always have, other brands have 10 times more issues. Even more bizarre than iphone problems.

I can't speak for everyone here, but i've been using apple products since early 2000's. And the level of quality has decreased dramatically with its skyrocketing success and popularity.

This can be a bit hard to deal with when you're used to a certain a level of quality, so we end up being called OCD and apple gets a bad rap.

i've had every iphone that came out so far. Orignal and 3G were flaweless.
3GS was exchanged MANY times for dead pixels. 4 was perfect. 4S had the most flaws by far.

iPhone 5 launch day phone finally started clicking/popping in the middle of the screen. I took it in, and it could not be fixed. I had to get a replacement.

They gave me a replacement which i immediately noticed had the crappy flickering/interlacing screens. F2 serial. I dealt with it until today when it started making my eyes hurt.

I showed at to the genius, and he apologized and gave me another.
DNP serial. everything perfect, except there was a MAJOR "pinch" in the screen on the right side of the screen. Hard to explain but imagine a totally black screen, and then spotlight off to the right. Not light leakage, totally different.

Got another apology and another replacement. DNP as well. This time, everything was officially ok.

So it was a bit of a hassle, but in the end, nothing is perfect. So you have to pick and choose your battles.

[Nale72]

Some say that you are lying if you say you didn't get a flawless iPhone 5, that you did it yourself after you got it and some say you can't expect to get a flawless iPhone 5, because it's just a phone and that you should just deal with it. (with flawless I here mean when you don't need magnifying glass to find a flaw).

I don't know what's true, but maybe this is what to expect from Apple products post Jobs. You still pay a premium price, but are not sure to get such a premium product that you have grown to expect from Apple.

[kannesss]

Mine came out of the box perfect. No scratches, everything's fine. No scratches anywhere, as its been in a case the whole time with a screen protector. But before I put it there I looked over the whole phone and I have still not noticed if they is anything at all wrong with mine.

[yly3]

Mine white one was and still is flawless. Week 40

[Leonard1818]

Have one and seen two others

[sulpfiction]

Flawless black 32g here. Absolutely flawless. I'd bet 80-90% (if not higher) of iPhone 5's are perfect. The number of people here with problems is not an accurate representation of what the real world suggests.

[Nale72]

Originally Posted by sulpfiction

Flawless black 32g here. Absolutely flawless. I'd bet 80-90% (if not higher) of iPhone 5's are perfect. The number of people here with problems is not an accurate representation of what the real world suggests.

According to the poll in this thread where 2348 users from this forum have cast their vote 33,43% of the users got a scuffed phone out of the box.

This isn't of course the same as it's the same for all new iPhone 5 sold. The users on this forum isn't representative for the "normal user. But I bet that many of the users here with flawless phones has tried their best to vote there to tidy up the numbers. At the same time many users with both flawless and scuffed phones have surely not seen the thread of bothered to vote.

However I believe the poll seems to indicate that at least more than 10-20% of the phones has not been flawless.