Verizon iPhone 4 - Front Glass/Digitizer Replacement

[jbsmithmac]

I have a Verizon iPhone 4 that I cracked the front screen on. So I followed the iFixit guide with front glass and digitizer parts from some eBay seller.

Replacing the screen wasn't that hard, but now the screen has a flicker to it, especially when the brightness is turned up. I suspect this is just because of the cheap $20 screen I bought.

Anyone out there that has done this replacement on a Verizon iPhone 4 without these issues? If so where did you buy the parts from?

[jbsmithmac]

Humm...I would have thought someone would have done this?

[Firesign3394]

Sounds like a punctured ribbon cable on the LCD...

You may need a new screen.

[dictoresno]

which is why there are some parts for phones i would get on the cheap and some i wont. screen and camera arent one of them.

[jbsmithmac]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I was actually hoping someone here has done this replacement and didn't have the flickering issues that I had so that they can point me to a "good" parts store.

[dictoresno]

Originally Posted by jbsmithmac

Thanks for the comments everyone. I was actually hoping someone here has done this replacement and didn't have the flickering issues that I had so that they can point me to a "good" parts store.

after doing alot of research on amazon and here looking for a replacement screen for my wifes iphone 4, i found that the amazon ones are mostly crummy and cheap and are prone to pixelation and flicker. i was torn between getting a replacement kit from iCracked.com or from ifixit.com. iCracked's replacement screen kit comes with all the tools and instructions needed for the job and seem to have good customer feedback, plus its half the price of ifixit's price. i settled on the iCracked replacement kit for $65.00, as opposed to the $120 for an ifixit screen.. however, i will state the quality of the ifixit parts are top quality, which is why they are more expensive. so of all the replacement options, i would choose one of those routes.

[l.a.rossmann]

Originally Posted by dictoresno

i was torn between getting a replacement kit from iCracked.com or from ifixit.com. iCracked's replacement screen kit comes with all the tools and instructions needed for the job and seem to have good customer feedback, plus its half the price of ifixit's price.

iCracked buys from Jack Telecom, which is an excellent company that uses excellent factories. Jack uses a copy digitizer of high quality, and the original LCD. Good stuff, but iCracked sells them for over 100% markup. I am not sure who iFixit buys them from, but $120 is insane - you can get a new phone from Apple for $150, and you don't have to spend an hour dicking around with a screwdriver either.

It's difficult comparison shopping. Obviously, someone isn't going to answer a "hey, do you buy from jack telecom or HY or do you buy from the people selling the ***** LCD for $18 when you purchase iPhone parts?" if you ask point blank. Further, neither is a company going to be forthcoming in answering questions about which LCD or digitizer is used. Even if they were that honest and forthcoming, most simply don't know.

The truth is, it is nearly impossible to compete on price(where 90% of the customers come from) buying good stuff. So, many companies buy the $18 crap and resell for $25-$30. The market for cheap crap booms.

Then, companies based on brand name come in and sell them for $70-$120 based on the idea of "hey, you don't want to get the $25-$30 crap right? it doesn't work. Spend more for quality with us." They put a lot of time into developing a brand, cool videos, cool website, cool graphics design, cool guides, cool kits, trusted name, etc to compete in the "quality market" - purchasing assembies that are 30% more costly($23-$26), but selling them for 100-200%($60-$120) more money.

The problem is that there isn't a middle class established when it comes to parts for the iPhone 4. You know, the people who are willing to only make a couple of bucks like the crap peddlers, but willing to sell good stuff like the branding warriors. Vendors can spend an extra $6 over the $18 crap, and get an amazing display to sell to their customers at around $30-$35, and get money all day, right? Wrong - there's a reason almost no one does this. The reason you don't see a lot of vendors buying the $26 stuff and reselling for $32 is because there is little money in the middle class. Selling $25 parts for $100 a few times by leveraging brand name makes money. Selling $18 **** fifteen thousand times a week for $23-$24 makes money. Selling $24-$26 stuff for $30-$35 is a demographic that is not met with high sales volume, or high profit margin. It makes little business sense, and therefore, little money. So, it is difficult to find those vendors. I am not sure what to tell you here. Your best bet is likely buying one from iCracked, or finding someone local to do it for you - for an extra $15 you can bitch someone out in person if anything is not perfect with your phone. That's priceless.

Originally Posted by dictoresno

after doing alot of research on amazon and here looking for a replacement screen for my wifes iphone 4, i found that the amazon ones are mostly crummy and cheap and are prone to pixelation and flicker.

You cannot judge an Amazon replacement at all. Look at how many 3rd party sellers sell under one Amazon listing! Do you notice there are over one dozen sellers selling under one listing? One could be selling a good one, one seller could be selling crap. If you want to judge the parts from Amazon, judge a specific 3rd party seller, or else it's like saying "The Chevy car is bad." Which Chevy?

Even if you link to one specific product on Amazon, there are many people selling under that same ASIN, meaning many different people selling different levels of quality. It isn't like eBay where one listing relates to one seller. This is part of what makes Amazon ******. Lack of a consistent buying experience & lack of brand recognition of a product, due to allowing multiple sellers to sell under one listing.

I just wrote a summary of screen types recently. I imagine yours falls into the one quoted below.

The third type is a crap LCD, with a crap digitizer. The crap digitizer typically has a home button hole too big for the phone. Or, the crap digitizer will have dots on it. Digitizers, the part that you touch, work based on a grid. When you touch the digitizer, you disrupt the flow through that section, and it knows where you are touching. Older, lower quality digitizers have visible digitizer grids, as the grid is less defined. For example – a new iPhone 5, vs. a BlackBerry Storm 9530 – it is easy to see the grid on the latter phone, if the screen is viewed at an angle. We will be selling these shortly for budget conscious customers. The crap LCD will be thicker than the original which means the adhesive used to bond the digitizer to the LCD must be thinner. This means the digitizer is closer to the LCD, which can cause pressure points(color explosions) on the LCD. It also means that the LCD is going to have pressure on it from the back as it struggles to fit in the phone, which can cause it to fail earlier, crack easier. Lastly, obviously, a knockoff LCD will look like **** – the companies that produce them are just not set up like LG, Toshiba, Sharp, etc are.

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[dictoresno]

if by "judging" you mean basing on the tons of negative feedback on amazon for different screens i see for sale. people saying the ribbon cable is too short, the screen flickers or doesnt work at all or that it doesnt fit. ive been repairing blackberry and iphone devices for me and friends for awhile and have purchased a ton of parts from a wide variety of 3rd party sellers. i always try to buy the closest to OEM parts. i find that the surprisingly cheap parts dont work right and dont perform as they should. case in point, there are $5 replacement cameras for iphone 4's on amazon. good deal!! not!! the autofocus doesnt work on half of them. i had to buy the $30 replacement from ifixit. you pay what you get for. im not "judging" what i see on amazon, just stating you have a better chance getting from a better source, as opposed to taking the cheap route on certain kinds of parts.\


EDIT: by the way, im not knocking amazon, or their sellers or their products. just saying that for this particular item, there seem to be more established and well respected 3rd party sellers that have a solid website, brick and mortar store, excellent feedback and overall a more quality item. i would rather spend $60 and know its backed by people here in the US, with a return policy and a warranty and real customer service than take my chances on buying from a Hong Kong seller through amazon for $10. if i need to return the item if it doesnt function, ill be looking at spending weeks and $50 just to do that....and be in a bigger hole than before. ive been there and done that in the past. which is why i dont mind coughing up a little more dough for the extra piece of mind.

[l.a.rossmann]

Originally Posted by dictoresno

if by "judging" you mean basing on the tons of negative feedback on amazon for different screens i see for sale. people saying the ribbon cable is too short, the screen flickers or doesnt work at all or that it doesnt fit. ive been repairing blackberry and iphone devices for me and friends for awhile and have purchased a ton of parts from a wide variety of 3rd party sellers. i always try to buy the closest to OEM parts. i find that the surprisingly cheap parts dont work right and dont perform as they should. case in point, there are $5 replacement cameras for iphone 4's on amazon. good deal!! not!! the autofocus doesnt work on half of them. i had to buy the $30 replacement from ifixit. you pay what you get for. im not "judging" what i see on amazon, just stating you have a better chance getting from a better source, as opposed to taking the cheap route on certain kinds of parts.

50% of the people who say the ribbon cable is too short crmped it putting it in. I had to put this photo in my own listings after 9 out of every 10 returns had a user ripped cable.

Again, for that amazon camera listing. Let's look.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...&condition=new

SIXTEEN DIFFERENT SELLERS!!!

Sixteen different people selling sixteen different items.

If you tell me "digitalcenter sells good stuff, but AEstore sells crap"

That makes sense. Or the other way around. I am not judging either as I have no experience with either, but my point is that a judgment of a particular seller holds water.

However, to say "Amazon parts suck" makes no sense. They're NOT Amazon parts. It's like going to a mall and saying "every videogame the Staten Island Mall sell is scratched and used and sold as new." The SI Mall does not sell videogames! However, the stores renting space in the mall do. Where in the mall did you go? Gamestop? Electronics Boutique? An independent game store? You can't blame the mall for one store.

I'm just trying to remind people that on Amazon, many sellers can sell one item. I'm not defending any particular seller, or defending Amazon. I'm pointing out that you can't judge "Amazon" because Amazon is just a marketplace for different sellers. It is more helpful in the long term if you can point out the specific seller that you had a positive or negative experience with, rather than using Amazon.

[dictoresno]

i buy alot of items from amazon, shipped from amazon directly and through their sellers who are just advertising there. so im well aware how this all works.

ill refine my previous statement. most of the replacement items (notably the replacement iphone 4 cameras) i have found (not all though) on amazon seem to have origins from overseas sellers and seem to be of lesser quality (lack autofocus). i make these statements from reading through peoples feedbacks, and through my own purchase. this isnt meant to say they are all bad, but i just want one item, to work as it should. not weed through 16 sellers ranging from $0.01-$10, to find out which one works as described.

the more expensive cameras, being sold elsewhere and for more money, do work as they should. i can only come to the conclusion they most, not all, of the $3 replacement cameras, are not going to work. im not gonna buy 16 $3 cameras and find the working one, then return the rest.

[V0RT3X]

Are there any trusted ebay links for getting non-crap screens?

Is this one good? http://www.jacktele.com/sdp/775439/4...ch_Panel_.html

I guess I can separate it from the others by the red film on the back.

[dictoresno]

Originally Posted by V0RT3X

Are there any trusted ebay links for getting non-crap screens?

Is this one good? http://www.jacktele.com/sdp/775439/4...ch_Panel_.html

I guess I can separate it from the others by the red film on the back.

according to our amazon seller above, he stated that icracked buys from jack telecom. so judging by this, i would say that website would be better than the other $15 screens elsewhere. i would prefer to get it from a site that is a US seller, and backs their products against defects. the screen i got from icracked indeed does have the red film as shown on the JT site.

[l.a.rossmann]

I apologize for reviving this, but I have to mention - red, blue, white film - it has no correlation to quality.

[iRepairParts]

Originally Posted by dictoresno

if by "judging" you mean basing on the tons of negative feedback on amazon for different screens i see for sale. people saying the ribbon cable is too short, the screen flickers or doesnt work at all or that it doesnt fit. ive been repairing blackberry and iphone devices for me and friends for awhile and have purchased a ton of parts from a wide variety of 3rd party sellers. i always try to buy the closest to OEM parts. i find that the surprisingly cheap parts dont work right and dont perform as they should. case in point, there are $5 replacement cameras for iphone 4's on amazon. good deal!! not!! the autofocus doesnt work on half of them. i had to buy the $30 replacement from ifixit. you pay what you get for. im not "judging" what i see on amazon, just stating you have a better chance getting from a better source, as opposed to taking the cheap route on certain kinds of parts.\


EDIT: by the way, im not knocking amazon, or their sellers or their products. just saying that for this particular item, there seem to be more established and well respected 3rd party sellers that have a solid website, brick and mortar store, excellent feedback and overall a more quality item. i would rather spend $60 and know its backed by people here in the US, with a return policy and a warranty and real customer service than take my chances on buying from a Hong Kong seller through amazon for $10. if i need to return the item if it doesnt function, ill be looking at spending weeks and $50 just to do that....and be in a bigger hole than before. ive been there and done that in the past. which is why i dont mind coughing up a little more dough for the extra piece of mind.

Agreed. One of the trade-offs with buying from overseas is that there isn't any quality assurance. If an issue arises and parts turn out to be defective, it can be extremely expensive to ship items back (if the seller will even accept returns.)

We recently were sourcing suppliers to add to our contact list, and we placed a sample order of well over $500 for various parts. When the parts came into stock, they were all sent through quality control. Over 90% of the parts were either defective, damaged, or were simply not what we had asked for. When we asked the supplier how we go about getting a refund, he said they only do exchanges. Luckily I bought through PayPal. PayPal told me to ship the item back with delivery confirmation which was around $180 total for return, and then when the seller received the package I would be refunded. Well, the seller did not like the fact that we were returning the package so they left it with customs for about 2 weeks. In the end, PayPal ended up refunding our money and we didnt get stuck with defective parts.

The main point that should be driven home here is that you get what you pay for. Dont go spending $25 on a screen assembly and expect stellar quality. Cheap parts are cheap for a reason.. The digitizers are not as high quality, the LCD is not original, and overall build of the assembly is not anywhere comparable to that of a higher quality screen.

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Originally Posted by l.a.rossmann

I apologize for reviving this, but I have to mention - red, blue, white film - it has no correlation to quality.

Very much correct. Some sellers will try to get you to think that the LCD with the red film is a certain type of LCD. Do not base any judgement on this. Test, test, and test... That's the only way you will know what you are getting.