A guy offers me a bricked iPhone 3GS with baseband 06.15.00 and iOS 5.0.1, jailbroken. The price is really good and I'm temped to buy it but I want to ask you for advice. Do you think I could fix it or it will be necessary to take it to Apple to change the baseband chip or something?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Should I buy this iPhone? (a bricked 3GS)
- Thread starter withoutshade
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Depends on what is bricked about it. It's extremely hard to say. For all you know it could just not be turning on. If it's all software, you can almost always save it. Just curious, how GOOD is good (in terms of price)? The answer to that question would at least let me be able to tell you whether I, personally, would take a gamble. $25? Sure. $100? Maybe not.
The guy said it's all software issue.
He also said that wifi and bluetooth are unavailable and the phone restarts itself sometimes.
He also said that wifi and bluetooth are unavailable and the phone restarts itself sometimes.
Last edited:
Thanks for the advices, guys! Haha, the price is around 150$.
And by the way, how does it cost to change a baseband chip (if needed) in Apple service, any ideas? Just informative..
And by the way, how does it cost to change a baseband chip (if needed) in Apple service, any ideas? Just informative..
$At $150, no way... As far as baseband chip replacement, I am not even sure they do this, specifically. I would think they would have to replace the whole kit and kaboodle as its basically all on one board with only things like the camera and screen actually "plugging in". This basically translates to cost prohibitive, I would think.
Nope, a poor hardware repair can be a parma brick. I'd pass. Although I had a girl friend (friend girl) that sold her "bricked" 3GS for 200 back when then 4's (not 4s) came out and all it needed was a reset. She finalized the sale before I looked at it. So there are deals.
I had another friend sell his 4 advertising it was unlocked because he didn't know what that meant too. Lol. So watch out.
I had another friend sell his 4 advertising it was unlocked because he didn't know what that meant too. Lol. So watch out.
It's clear to me now. I'm asking because the seller had taken the phone to some service and they told him it's bricked and it must be taken to Apple to be fixed. I read somewhere that the baseband chip/processor have to be changed. Otherwise I watched a few videos on youtube how people easily fix bricked iPhones but apparently it depends on what exactly is bricked, as you said.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A406 Safari/7534.48.3)
How much is it? If it was under $50 then it might be worth a try...
How much is it? If it was under $50 then it might be worth a try...
If it's all software, it shouldn't really need Apple's help. Thing is, if it was as easy as that, the guy would just do it and sell it. At $150, that's not much cheaper than it would be if it were working with no issues.
Yes, you're right. I almost got tricked, you saved me!
By the way, I don't know how's it in your countries but here it's very rarely to see 3GS below 200$. That's why I said "good price".
Yes, you're right. I almost got tricked, you saved me!
By the way, I don't know how's it in your countries but here it's very rarely to see 3GS below 200$. That's why I said "good price".
That's probably about right. But $200 for a working phone versus $150 for a potentially broken phone. In my eyes that isn't nearly enough savings to make it worth taking the risk. JMO