In store iPhone 5 replacement

[CBRMRY]

About two weeks ago I dropped my iPhone 5 and the screen and the band separated . I went to my local apple store and they looked at and advised me it would be $229 for a replacement. I told the genius I would just wait and hope it help up until a new iPhone was released.

Later on the day I got an email about my visit and it gave me the option to chat online with a genius about it. So I did, I explained what happened and the online Genius decided they would replace it for free! I couldn't be happier of course. I mailed it and they mailed me the new one back.

Fast forward to a two weeks later I realized that when I would record a video, vertical lines would appear on the playback if the rear camera was used.

I made an appointment today at my local Apple Store they checked it out and gave me a replacement. When the genius told me it would be replaced he went and he grabbed a white box one and asked me what carrier I use. I told him AT&T so he typed in to his iPad finished everything up and I was on my way with my new iPhone.

I was wondering though, Could all white box replacements be the same and they assign a carrier lock when it is being activated?

 

[Flyers12]

No, they're not all the same. But, in regards to the carrier lock, certain phones like the cdma 4/4s can be and must be activated through either sprint or verizon and once you select which carrier it cannot be changed. ATT has their seperate antennas etc and use sim card activation. Although, 5's for sprint and verizon can be sim card activated as well, but are already locked.

 

[CBRMRY]

Oh so there is actually a CDMA iPhone and A GSM iPhone? I thought they may have been the same hardware just running different antennas within.

 

[Flyers12]

There is that and for the iPhone 5's the ATT/unlocked ones use a different LTE channel than the verizon sprint ones as well. That is how it is in the US. Surprisingly the LTE channel on verizon iphone 5's are the same in germany as a random fact haha

 

[g35]

That's more or less how they do it. The iPhone is locked to whatever carrier the genius activates it with on the first run. This can be either AT&T or T-mobile for one model of iPhone, and either Sprint or Verizon for the other model. In Canada all iPhones are the same model, so no matter which carrier they grab one from the same pile and choose the carrier manually.