iPad 2 Exchange HELP

If it's minor, I'd keep it. Most of them have it in some form, you may get a worse one. I had minor light bleed and it's seeming to go away over time.

 

I don't know, but at this point, I wouldn't be too picky. You'll be lucky if they have *any* to exchange, let alone one sealed in a box.

 

If it's minor leave it be, they all have a little LB I seen iPads with really bad LB that really needed fixing

 

In the begining you will usually get a new in box replacement as they do not have reconditioned ones available yet. Sometimes they are in a plain brown box. But, even those are actually new units.

 

Got my black 32GB wifi iPad 2 on Thursday. On Friday, I went to watch a movie on it and noticed light bleeding from the bottom of the screen and a stuck pixel. On light colors (yellow, light purple, etc) it was showing up as an aqua or turquoise color. On reds, it was black. On darker colors it was red.

Called Apple that evening (Friday) at about 7:15pm and was able to set up a Genius Bar appt for 8:40pm. Brought it in and showed him the stuck pixel, didn't even mention the light bleed. He went in back and came out about 5 minutes later with a new sealed black 32GB wifi iPad 2. He went to hand it to me and I told him that my power adapter wasn't in the box, so he could pull the one out of that box and put it in the old box. He told me it didn't matter and not to worry about it.

No pixel problems on this one, and haven't noticed any light bleeds either (but I haven't tried to watch a movie on it yet).

So far, of all the companies I've dealt with, Apple has the best customer service. They had also replaced my iPhone 3G when I was having the common freezing while asleep problem with one of the 3.x OS versions (I forget which version) even though it was over a year old and out of warranty. Apparently when I called Apple C/S, I was one of the early people to do so, and they wanted to send it back to engineering to see what was causing the freezing with the software. They took a brand new iPhone 3G out of a box and gave it to me, not a refurb. Apparently Apple C/S had told them to do that.

 

Well I took my back and they put in a order for a new one and what showed up came out of a brown box. It was obviously one that had already been returned and much worse than mine so I am keeping my for the time being.

This sucks.

 

If you go through the Genius Bar repair route, you may get a refurbished replacement. The replacements the Genius Bar get are shipped in unsealed reusable generic boxes, and you can't tell by the box if the replacement part inside of it is new or refurbished. Apple refurbs come with a brand new exterior shell and a brand new battery, so you shouldn't be able to visibly tell if your replacement is refurbed or not. There's usually a way you can tell via the serial number, but this varies by product, and I'm not sure if anyone's figured out the iPad 2's refurbed range yet.

If you want to exchange your iPad for one that's 100% guaranteed new-in-box, you need to go the return route, not the repair route. Return your iPad to where you purchased it for (tell them it's damaged) and have them refund your money and sell you a new one. Note that you have to do this where you originally bought your iPad. If you bought it from Best Buy, you can not return it to the Apple Store for a refund.