Phone repairs are getting ridiculous - Here's why.

in front of me I have three iPhone 15s oh God oh my God oh my God oh my God ouch oh I hate this I hate this now why did I do that that was extremely painful and stupid well you might want to cover your eyes for this one because it's about to get worse this is essentially the sharpest pick that I own so let's use it to carve my favorite song lyrics ever into the back of each one never gone perfect now for number two there we go gently does it and number three I'm trying to match them as closely as possible finished so what I've done here is strategically destroyed each one of these iPhones using the same amount of force in the same places on both the front and the back so that we can answer a very important question who should you be getting to repair your phone let's call this one phone number one I've set a nice cheap looking green background to represent the fact that this one we're going to get repaired from literally whoever will take the least amount of money phone 2 this middle yellow one is going to be repaired by someone who I think is charging a fair price then I'm going to set a deep red wallpaper for phone 3 because this one is going directly to Apple and it's probably going to be expensive so we're going to be able to see how the entire experience Works who does it the cheapest and who does it the best okay so Step One is we make some phone calls so what are the local options in my city these are the kind of places that I imagine will hopefully be cheaper than Apple okay let's start with phone garage hello hey he I have just managed to smash my iPhone 15 in a pretty brutal way would you be able to repair it yes you can do that to you it's nearly 320 320 for the screen of the iPhone 15 and if you want the gentic one 180 and then also about the back plate cuz I've scratched up the back of the phone as well5 on extra how quickly would you be able to repair it take like 4 to 5 hours big only half an hour it's very interesting that this guy's saying the official Apple screen is going to cost me £320 for a phone that I only bought for £699 but it is cool that he gave us that cheaper option of £180 and then £75 for the back cuz I'd be very curious how close to the originals quality that can get that's closer to what I imagine it actually should cost for the original parts but then I found someone willing to go even further you know the ones which don't actually have a website but just like a really poorly kept Facebook page if anyone's going to do a cheap rep I think it's going to be these guys 180 180 I can give you screen Protection free we don't change only back glass we change full housing but what that means is I'm going to have to get the front repaired from this guy and then the back repaired from the first place and that will be a non- genuine screen quality is very good same as the Orion thank you very much and that go is pretty nice so £180 for the screen which he's saying is original Apple quality without being original Apple he'll throw in a screen protector for free so that I I don't do it again to myself and then if I have any problems with it he'll fix it although we do need to find out exactly how long that warranty period would last for so E mobile repair is going to be our cheapest option well wait the dude's already sent me a text that is absolutely crazy you know in this year after your first date you should wait a couple of days before texting this guy was just straight in now on my route to finding a fair Middle Ground repair option I ended up having an extremely interesting chat with a not Apple but supposedly Apple certified Repair Center thank you than you for calling a genuine Apple replacement screen is £300 on those the third party screens they don't really do one for the 15 there is the odd ones about but they will not do very good at all has Apple changed something on the 15 that makes them less repairable yes it's Hardware locks on stuff so things are paid up to them now if you tip the camera out of another iPhone 15 original one put it into your the camera won't work at all what some of them do do to try and falsify a little bit is detect the chip from the original screen and transfer that chip onto the replacement screen mhm and then it will stop the notifications coming up I'm an apple technician but not for here when I'm at the other shop I can do them that's the shop that's authorized do so we have to do them from that geo location as such oh I see so Apple actually like tells you where that repair can happen as well yeah everything's coded when we order the parts they come direct to that store and we can use them within that store cuz obviously Apple would know by the IP what address where you doing it wow there's a lot into it they're very clever now I thought while we're here we might as well also ask this guy if he thinks Apple makes a profit on the parts IT supplies to repair centers or if they're doing it at Cost oh they'll make profit on them the mid shaft is for a genuine they're 439 15 Pro Max a shf is £600 and a screen is £400 um what 400 just for the screen can that be right but also Apple actually geol loocks the location of the repair centers that are authorized to make sure that the repair only happens in that exact location that's been approved right now I guess we have to bite the bullet and call Apple themselves okay I think you actually have to go through their website so they have this tool that lets you calculate I guess so cracked screen iPhone 15 yeah £ 289 and then what if the back glass is damaged 169 is what it's saying hm so then I can do cracked screen and back glass damage together and that's going to be 399 that's definitely cheaper than what the last guy was telling us but it's all just so weird how much disinformation there is between these different repair places anyway is turns out there is no Apple store in my area but it's fine because what Apple does then is sends you to a store that they've approved to do it on behalf of them so let's call them we have apple trained engineers and they use all Apple certified parts so it's the same as getting it repaired through Apple themselves most repairs if we've got Parts in take about three hours okay that's pretty fast if we've not got Parts in um which both parts we might not uh you're normally looking around about two to three working days for you it seems like the nearest appointment you have is Tuesday is that right okay I mean there's kind of good news in the sense that I was expecting this to potentially take 10 to 15 days going the official route he's suggesting it can actually be done same day although because they're so busy that same day has to be 5 days from now what I'm finding really interesting here is that Apple themselves are not actually the most expensive repair option the most expensive actually seems to be the companies who use official Apple Parts but who aren't themselves Apple the way that it clearly works is you either go to you go to a local place and you get local unauthorized parts and that is going to be your cheapest option or you go to Apple themselves in which case you pay a high price but then you do get everything the official way it doesn't feel like there's an in between option though that makes sense in any way like if you go to third party repair places but then specify that you also want Apple official Parts you'll actually pay more than just going to Apple but we should try it as a third option just in case there are any surprises on the way so let's call up the delightfully named ick and I just wanted to get a quote 330b for the standard quality screen 450 for the original screen and original bag this standard screen like how good is it compared to the original screen it's obviously not that good but the original screens you get from used iPhones is that right yes for you we'll stick with the 4501 then it will be take three to four working days it's so strange that there's a situation in which the really kind of dodgy hodg Podge repairs why that is more expensive than Apple's official one right so I think we have our three repair options we have the completely unofficial repair which is going to cost £180 for the screen from one shop and then £75 for a new back to be stuck on from another shop then there's unofficial repair but using real Parts which is going to cost £330 for the screen and then £1 120 for the back so £450 and then there's the full official Channel which is Apple's £400 lb repair let's get the ball rolling with them so we're still on Day Zero we're on our way to the cheapest repair place going to say actually kind of proud with how symmetrically I've managed to destroy these almost like a work of art oh okay I don't think it's open yet that's actually a very cool logo though you see the the phone with the notch might just like give the phone number a ring hi uh I called earlier today I we're waiting outside the store for a phone repair not 10 open 10 apparently oh oh my God [Music] [Music] so you were saying you could do a unofficial screen repair for 180 and then you give a tempered glass screen protector so basically every feature should work the same way and you think the quality looks the same yeah you could do this you're saying within about an hour yeah yeah right well I can't speak to the quality of the repair yet but what I really like about these small shops as opposed to the big corporations is they just get it done as opposed to like scheduling an appointment and then we'll check stock of parts and maybe we'll order them in from our warehouse but we move time to tackle our next repair [Music] store ey crack ey crack sounds a bit funny than that but never mind why did they call themselves ey crack that implies they're the ones doing the cracking what was wrong with eye fix what a glorious Haven of a modern society a broken iPhone here my friend carbed something into it 330 for the standard quality both and 450 for the original screen and the original G unless you get it replaced from the Apple itself you will get a message saying it's not an apple original part £450 is just wild for a phone that I paid $699 for something about the current state of the repair industry really sucks and I can't tell right now if it's because of Apple who is specifically coding the parts in your iPhone to make sure they only work in your iPhone or if it's just on the repairers so both non-apple repair phones have been dropped we're still on the first day mind you so I was expecting to wait a little bit of time to hear from anyone but I have learned never to underestimate eMobile repair okay we've only been back about 45 minutes hi just want to confirm phone fixed and ready thanks crazy hello the entire front panel is gone and that's what been a place okay it's the actual screen that's being fitted I actually think that it's a generic one that brand stick has been stuck on afterwards just to add legitimacy to it sorry I peeled that label so true tone works yeah yeah exact copy exact copy yeah right so I guess this is one immediate downside of going via the ultra cheap rout cuz it's basically just 2 month warranty scribbled onto a tiny little receipt I think they'd probably honor it out of Goodwill but you don't really have a guarantee in the same way that you do when you go via official channels but remember we're not done yet with this one because mobile repair didn't offer a back replacement I have to make another stop to be able to get that done my friend decided to carve something into it so I just want to swap it you guys said you could do it same day about £75 to order it so it will tomorrow tomorrow okay we'll order the back yeah that's it's kind of unfortunate really they did say on the phone that it would be done the same day and now they're saying that you actually have to pay the cash first so that they order the part so that they can bend do it it's still a faster than the official rout but it just doesn't feel good to be thrown around like that okay so we're about to colapse the fully repaired cheapest repair phone yeah just working on your phone again the connection was loose we'll come back in 15 minutes is that okay that actually doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the quality of repair if they've already found a loose part so I did what I always do when I have 50 minutes to spare the Pokémon card shop never gets old right now let's pick up the phone so the robber bands are keeping the back on yes do you think this will Avid the warranty as well yes she kind of feel bad for it it looks like it's just come out of surgery o actually I've just realized something okay we need to talk about this oh wow it's Lally giving me a temperature warning obviously the glue gun they've used to fix this is not an apple approved fixing method there's been a slight hiccup with phone number two we can't get that original screen and origal will back for it right now there are some shops which deal with the original parts how do they get the parts the original parts I have no idea but very honest so it's not great that they've agreed to a service before knowing that they could do it and slightly alarming that they don't know where their parts are coming from is there a way you can just request the original parts and we wait a bit longer I can ask the guy in the main lab half an hour I'll get back to you yeah he didn't get back to me it's not available in the market as I told you before so you have have no estimated time when that's going to come exactly I think I'll leave it then thank you oh dear hey we are bright and early on day number five and we're going straight to our very official Apple appointment talk now how is the official Apple cheaper than many other places official pricing would display separately about so I'm not sure if they were take into account that cheaper when you get both done at the same time with the 50 remve the back BL now okay so it'll be display you taking off taking off cuz on the old models you would have to replace the entire back of the phone so means I don't need to wipe my phone or anything like that like that's really good how does the warranty work is it the same warranty that I purchased it with or do you get an extended warranty it's continuing the warranty you have at the moment or if you had less than 90 days it would extend so we're out of back at the moment fre working days so Tuesday so you guys can't tell me now when it'll be in it'll be a text uh it be a text this is a pretty positive experience to be honest like yes obviously expensive but now we know that it's not as expensive as it gets and it is really good to know that the official Repair Route no longer needs you to wipe your vote and I suppose the other part of it is as much as I don't love that this is a thing this is your only way to guarantee that you can actually keep your warranty like as soon as you start getting those not genuine parts messages it's it's gone right this is actually really interesting like there's a good chance you've heard that Apple has been in quite a bit of hot water over the last few years for trying to control the repair process and rightly so to be honest cuz I mean if you think about the percentage value of the phone that we've just had to pay just to fix it it's almost cheaper just to buy a working used one on eBay but I do feel like we've just witnessed the first signs of that changing let's just try Opera's Arya AI here what has Apple changed on their newer iPhones that allows them to be cheaper to repair okay so modular design which means that individual components are easier to take off separately so I guess that's why they no longer need to completely replace the phone they can just fix what's there and then also easier disassembly so fewer mechanisms and adhesives so I can get rid of all of this and the new tab within a new tab Island which is one of the best things about Opera's browser everything actually feels organized so if we go to Apple's repair cost estimator iPhone 15 which is what we already did it's going to tell us that it will cost $399 we knew that but but if you change that to iPhone 14 pro which is the last phone using the previous less repairable architecture 619 to repair a phone that is an absolute joke the only remaining question then is this whole Parts pairing thing that Apple does this idea that Apple has to specifically assign a part to authorize it to be able to work within your specific iPhone otherwise it's non- genuine parts popup messages and voiding of your warranty as well as in some cases the parts just not working at all that's an ARA question too to be fair what are the Arguments for and against Apple's Parts pairing on their iPhones so yeah the perks are quality control it's Apple's way of making sure that if you get an iPhone you're having the iPhone experience all the time but then I suppose to some extent it is also for the security of the customer like let's say you go to a knockoff repair store to fix your face ID scanner for example and then they fix that with a knockoff face ID part that may scan your face data in a less secure way and then something happens and then you blame it on your iPhone I guess Apple's trying to avoid that situation but then on the other hand Parts pairing does severely limit the users Choice when it comes to options for repairing their phone like this whole process has been very shocking to me I expected to be able to walk into these shops and there' be 15 different tiers of repair options I could go with all at different price points but the truth is it's just not worth it for most companies because the iPhone's going to reject most kinds of repair and the consumer won't be happy with them and then yeah actually also the fact that people feel like this behavior encroaches on their right to repair the fact that like I'm having to pay £400 or else there is a pretty major downside that does feel like a problem but there's a glimmer of hope it feels like it is creeping towards the right direction cuz actually 2 weeks ago Apple changed their policy to allow you to repair iPhones using used parts like they still have to be genuine parts it doesn't fix that problem but they can be genuine parts from an older used iPhone that isn't specifically the one model that those parts were designed for okay let's skip to actually picking up the two remaining phones so we can dig into some results and if you want to try the Opera browser for yourself that sponsor of this video to be able to do all of this stuff then link is in the description I would strongly recommend at least trying so time to pick up the finished phone from Apple and the remains of the phone from I what's the reason that they're not coming up parts no no exactly okay all right well thank you that's all right hello I'm just picking up a repair so they've done the screen and they've done the back glass you miss who the box that is me yes way oh you watched together yeah M using a pixel it's lovely to meet you now clearly this did not go as I was expecting it to go I thought there'd be a really cheap option a middle option and then the premium official option and that after all of this I would end up telling you middle is fine now I would say that the premium option is about what I expected it to be it's expensive I mean £400 to repair a phone that once you've used it is only worth about 5 to 600 is absolutely crazy but also you're not likely to get an appointment straight away which means that even though the repair in this case was pretty fast it took 2 Days in total because I had to wait 5 days to actually get that repair in the total time is 7 days which in today's age is a long time to spend without your phone but there are clear perks you keep your original warranty and the warranty is actually extended if you're near the end of it your phone keeps its waterproofing and I mean it really does just look like apple gave me a brand new phone with the perks of actually them not having to replace the device I mean I can't see a single Perfection on either the front or the back so clearly there are some substantial quality checks in place when you go down this route the middle option makes no sense at all I mean if you want genuine Apple Parts you're going to have to just pay more going through this way than just going through Apple everyone loses in this situation you're not going to get the same quality checks your back is effectively going to be glued on so it's going to be messy and you're going to lose your waterproofing your warranty is basically void on arrival and even though they can use official Apple Parts there is still a very good chance that you're going to get a notification saying that they're not genuine parts because of this whole Parts pairing thing so only apple as well as the few sellers that they authorize to work on their behalf have the software required to authenticate your parts and without that the resale value of your phone is just going to plummet and that's if these third party sellers can even find a real Apple part which in my case they could not so I just told them don't bother I just going to have to take the L on this phone but hey if you're finding this video useful then a sub to the channel well would be cracking just not I cracking cuz they didn't but the cheap option this one is a lot more interesting because this in total has cost me$ 255 and in my case it took one day and that's just because of the delay getting the back plate in but had they had that in stock this could have been a same day repair and like obviously I am in the lucky position where if I send my phone in I have other smartphones I can use but a lot of people don't for a lot of people handing in your smartphone might well mean living with a dumb phone or no phone for that time and so being able to minimize that Gap is a big perk but what is the quality of the repair like feel like we got a Bonus gift with these rubber bands okay for starters the tempered glass screen protector they' put on the front is actually not quite the right size for this phone it's kind of peeking out the bottom of the screen in a way that once you've noticed it for the first time is pretty distracting oh it's really not good there's actually a crack in in the screen protector itself already there's a weird shadowing around the dynamic Island which actually makes it look a lot like a fake iPhone let's take this screen protector off oh wow yeah even without the screen protector the screen he's fitted is actually a lot thicker so the phone is much less seamless too than it originally was the viewing angles are absolutely atrocious like as soon as you rotate this more than 30° just turns into a red mess does true tone still work let's see well actually yeah it's gone the option for True tone is has disappeared from the phone because it knows it's not using a genuine part the phone is much more aware of what parts it's using than I originally expected it just feels like everything happens a tiny bit slower than it does on the real phone oh but the back is the real problem like the glue is still seeping around all four corners it feels terrible it looks terrible but also they've got it in the cameras like if you look really closely here there is glue behind the glass on my phone it's not a great look but to be fair it doesn't show on camera or particularly affect the image quality so you know for the 10% of people who just will not pay £400 to repair their iPhone this is a cheaper option that does also do the job the best option for most people though will be the official repair route but if this video has taught me one thing it's that the repair industry in general just sucks and that cases and screen protectors just make too much sense

Channel: Mrwhosetheboss

Views: 2,287,498

Keywords: iphone, smartphone, repair, cheap, expensive

Id: oreZytDYoEU

Length: 22min 23sec (1343 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2024