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iphone build quality

danwestbrook

danwestbrook

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 11, 2007
174
61
Surrey, UK
Hi All,

Just wanted to see what you guys think about the build quality of the iphone?

i think apple cant seem to keep a decent build quality up due to high demand of there product and when you think most people are paying almost £900 for phone and whole contract surly we deserve better, below is my story/rant :)

I have just had to return my iphone 3g to my local apple store as it had dust under the screen and a small gap in the bottom right hand corner. I thought apple where being nice to me when they gave me a replacement, but how i was wrong when i got home i noticed that there was massive light leak down the left hand side off the screen and that the volume button was sank into the phone. im now not looking forward to a 2 hour trip back to the apple store to get another below par iphone.

I do have O2 insurnace and feel like calling up to get a replacement instead off a crappy refurb that apple will give

after reading round the forum and seeing lots off problems i was just wondering what everyone was doing for there next phone, i know im pretty pi**ed at apple at the minute and im seriously thinking bout trying a blackberry or Android device.
 
My iPhone just stooped trying anymore!

i purchased my 3GS during the pre-sale period and received it at the kick off date. but once I had it i noticed tat the battery life in it was depleting fast and then just about a month later it started to drop calls, I blamed ATT but they seed:

"service in my area ok... cheek your phone it might have a hardware problem"
Click to expand...

so since I love ATT so much (Ha! did you get the sarcasm) I called a couple of times to se if I got another answer form ATT customer service... but no, I got the same response all the time "its not us its the phone, call 1800apple and se if they can help you" so I did. They told me to reset a couple of times in many ways, shapes and forms, which by the way didn't do much at all. But then the odd thing started to happen, one day at about 3pm I lost my signal and didn't recover it till 4pm and wen it came back there was no 3G so I say maintenance chek rite! well ges again. I call ATT and they say that the there was no maintenance chek done during the day and that I soud have hade full service :eek: what the hell is going on.

So the next day I come from a over night shift and before I go to bed @ 7am the phone seas no service and i say "tha hell with you" and go too sleep. Wen I wake up, mind you its 5pm it still seas no service so I got scared and y did a full restore STILL NO SIGNAL so i decided to call apple and thats wen even the rep at apple was scratching his head and seed you might have to have your iPhone replaced but you might want to cheek the sim card first. so as son as i hang the home phone I get changed and went without an appointment to apple store 5th ave. and told them what was going on, had me wait since i didn't have a reservation but was quick wait and the genius started to restore and it just got stuck there, the iPhone just gave up. So the genius sas "aaaaaaa... Ok let me just get you a new one":( it came in a white box (not sure if it was refurbished)and as soon as i connected the sim card the signal came in with the 3G network.

So what's the moral of the story? It sometimes not the best thing to get those first products fresh out of the bakery cause they rush them so bad so that they can profit out of that iphone rush, and i bet you they don't even care if some people return phones just as long as you buy it.
 
I think the build quality is hit or miss.

I've held some iPhones that seem perfect, others have obvious faults, one of those things that is luck of the draw.

But, I'll say this, the build quality is on the low end of the scale in my opinion.
 
aprofetto said:
I think the build quality is hit or miss.
.
But, I'll say this, the build quality is on the low end of the scale in my opinion.
Click to expand...

Yes i total agree with you. If you think back a few years apple's hardware was always top with the old G5 and powerbooks, but now they just seem to wanna make as many and as cheap as possible.

And also make them so you have to keep them in all sorts of different cases just so they don't get scratched.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7A341 Safari/528.16)

I've had all three models bought on launch day. No issues at all.
 
GimmeSlack12 said:
Go buy a different phone then. You're in the minority of iPhone users :(
Click to expand...
wow.....what a lot of good you are !!

The Op is correct .many many have found build issues with their new 3gs. And as my cousin works for Apple here in London, she also would say that Apple are NOT producing to the same standards as the 2g and older Powerbooks G4 etc. And Apple (Regent Street) have had many returned.

Many will never accept a fault with their phones as they have become "sucked " into the mac lifestyle thing and will not hear a bad word against any products.
 
danwestbrook said:
but now they just seem to wanna make as many and as cheap as possible.
Click to expand...

Londonluke said:
And as my cousin works for Apple here in London, she also would say that Apple are NOT producing to the same standards as the 2g and older Powerbooks G4 etc.
Click to expand...

If their quality is going downhill so much, how come they keep selling more and more laptops and iPhones quarter on quarter (just check out their most recent quarterly report)?
 
seems like there a failure to the own success, by becoming so popular now, they have cut back on alot of quality controls to meet consumer demand. wishing i kept my old 2G now :):)
 
unlucky

you are probably very unlucky. I know many people with iphones and they seem to be the most solid and reliable phones around. All the other phones feel cheap and fragile compared to the iphone. As some 1 pointed out before, you are in the minority.

just try holding any windows mobile phone, then hold the iphone. Doing this will make you appreciate the iphone more. Repeat for better result.
:apple:
 
alFR said:
If their quality is going downhill so much, how come they keep selling more and more laptops and iPhones quarter on quarter (just check out their most recent quarterly report)?
Click to expand...

I would say because before apple was more high end for the professional industry, which expected high build quality, but now they have shifted to consumers as there main target hence why the build quality has lowered.

Yes i know how much the sales have gone up, but the people who are now buying the apple products are more used to the lower build quality as there coming for low end PC's IMPO
 
RubberDuck24 said:
you are probably very unlucky. I know many people with iphones and they seem to be the most solid and reliable phones around. All the other phones feel cheap and fragile compared to the iphone. As some 1 pointed out before, you are in the minority.

just try holding any windows mobile phone, then hold the iphone. Doing this will make you appreciate the iphone more. Repeat for better result.
:apple:
Click to expand...

haha lets not mention the dreaded Windows Mobile, sold mine after 3 days ;)
 
Mass production. It happens.

Seriously most iPhones out there are fine. All you hear is the bad stuff on the internet forums. Everyone I know with an iPhone including mine is perfect.
 
I could really care less about the iPhone build quality; as long as I can take it in for a free replacement until they get it right, I can sleep at night. I'm in awe of their customer service and dedication to "making it right" in the end....:cool:
 
I actually dropped my iphone 3G this morning from about 4 feet onto a ceramic floor. You could imagine my horror once I heard the noise from the impact. I couldn't see whether or not it dropped on its glass face or not, but the sim tray did pop out slightly after the impact.

However, my iPhone remained perfect! Only protection I had was the invisible shield on the back and power support anti glare in the front, and those protected it from scratches for sure... but I'm surprised there was no sort of impact damage! I may have gotten lucky as this probably dropped onto either it's back or sides first (absorbing most of whatever impact the screen may have took first), but I feel pretty lucky at the moment. :) I'm still stubborn enough to not get a hard case, though... I really can't stand the bulk those add to my iPhone!
 
I would like to get an iPhone with a light leak, dust under the screen, cracks, bezel mismatch, hot sweat, and pizza hot, just so I could see what all the fuss is about. :)

Seriously, my 3G has been dropped a number of times and worked fine. No dents, cracks, nothing. However, I don't treat the thing likes it's a priceless piece of jewelry either. Maybe I'd have these problems if I did.
 
Anyway just a quick update i took the second iphone back to the store, had a little moan in the possible hope off a 3gs :rolleyes: and they agreed to give me a 3rd 3G iphone (but said this would be the final one) seems a bit strange as it was there fault in the first place.

Anyway this time the phone came out off a draw behind the genius bar and not from out back, im hoping this one is not a refurb, the serial number seems newer and build quality feels much better anyway. Had a quick look in the dark and has a tiny bit of light leak but nothing im gonna lose any sleep over. Also i had to reset the network settings to get any 3G reception. But im hoping this one will now be fine (fingers crossed)
 
well i have no problem with the build quality on my iphone... especially after it took a flight off a car roof at about 40mph and apart from a cable that fell off inside it's still working like a dream. Cable re-attached, iphone put back together and seems smoother than before. :p

Think next time i won't take my coat off before i get in a car though, lol :rolleyes:
 
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