Odd question about exchanges and the QAQC lottery

I had a friend buy an iPhone 8 the same day I bought mine. He bought gray, I bought silver. He was torn on which color to buy initially. His phone is virtually perfect though in all respects, but he likes my silver.

He wants to know if it is somehow possible to buy a new silver phone and be able to open and inspect it prior to deciding to return his perfect gray phone. His thinking is if he can get a perfect silver one, then great, he will return the gray one, but because the gray one is perfect he is not particularly interested in giving it up in an exchange for an unknown - he wants to inspect the new phone first and if it checks out, cool, if not, he will just return it and stick with his gray one.

He has Verizon device payment for the new phone he just bought.

Is buying a SIM-free phone and paying full price up front the only way, thereby giving up his Verizon device payment if he decides the silver checks out and he wants to keep it? I can't imagine any other scenario where he can have two phones in his possession at once and be able to make a decision on which one to keep.

 

yellow/uneven screens, nicks/scratches out of the box, sim tray not perfectly flush, gapgate, you know - things that crop up with every iPhone launch. There's always something. I told him it's probably nothing to get concerned about - I've bought 6 flawless iPhones over the years and have never had to return one - but there's always that chance and that can be a hassle.

 

Also he could just walk in and buy a SIM free model without opening/activating it in store, right?

EDIT: The one caveat is that he wouldn't be able to get to the home screen without activating it though, right? So in theory he couldn't really test an all white/black page to check for screen evenness etc until after he activated the phone? That could be a hassle if the phone turns out to have a screen defect.