My sister-in-law's white iPhone 5 (16GB) just arrived today. It's her THIRD replacement. The other two had pretty noticeable DENTS in the band -- and both were from China -- and the same production batch.
So this time Apple gives her one from a Singapore warehouse -- DEAD BATTERY OUT OF THE BOX.
I've read about this before, and I just KNOW this ain't gonna be good. I'm charging it now. Will charge it to full and let you know how long it takes to do so. If it ain't two hours, that'll be the second horrible sign that something's wrong with the battery (bad batteries take less time to charge to full).
THIRD REPLACEMENT!! WHAT ARE THE ODDS??!? Apple says that this is the last replacement they can give too. After this, they can only give her money back.
We're cool with that, but we are absolutely P*SSED that it's taken her a full month, shipping defective iPhones back and forth!!
I'm going to check the serial on this to see where and when it was made, and whether it's a refurb. In a question I've asked Apple before, they said they don't replace brand-new orders with refurbs. They might replace used items with refurbs, but not brand-new orders. That's their policy (they say).
So that's one more thing to check!
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Ok, back from the check:
WEEK 48 (December) ... the other 2 defective ones were from week 26 (Nov)
Factory: DN (Chengdu) ... the other 2 were from F2 (Zengzhou) (or were they F1... I'll double check my screenshots)
So it's a new model from a better factory but with a crud battery.
Well.. still need to get the verdict on the battery (still charging, but I can bet on this...)