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Comment by pretext-1 | Hacker News Reader

199$ is still quite expensive for many though. I believe common repairs for inexpensive parts (back glass, USB-C port, battery) should be below 100$.

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$200 to replace glass is pretty absurd, I bet they'd do that for £20 at the second hand phone shop round the corner from me

Sure, and you'll probably end up with 10-year old Gorilla Glass 2 that'll break within a second, and not Ceramic Shield! :)

Honestly it'd probably be better if 3rd party offerings were made of plastic. It's be better than the original.

Glass is such a stupid material for a phone. It makes the device you're supposed to hold slippery AND fragile. But we've somehow ended up in this stupid world where phone reviewers have influenced people into thinking they need "premium" feeling devices rather than practical.

Regardless of everything else Nokia's Windows Phone era had some of the best phone bodies. Fun bright colors, basically indestructible, screen proteting lip, and didn't block RF at all. If plastic was re-invented today (i.e. it was the hip new thing) everyone would be using it rather than glass and aluminum shells, which feels "premium" between the time you remove it from the box and put it into a phone case (e.g. 10-minutes of ownership).

You could source a new part yourself and get it installed there. It will set you back much less than $200

And I can’t imagine they have to pair the back glass to the CPU.

Don't give them any ideas.

"The unique nano-etching pattern on the back glass is stored in the secure enclave of the A16 Bionic, so the replacement glass must be paired to the SoC for the phone to securely boot."

But then what if someone steals the back off the phone?!? Apple needs to fix this immediately to prevent theft!

You joke, but I've seen phones that bonded the wireless charging coil to the back of the phone, selling the combination as a replacement part. Apple could definitely chip that component if they wanted to.

The USB-C port on my iPad was faulty when the product arrived and they wanted £600 to repair it.

You laughed, quoted the law to them and didn’t pay a penny right?

I tried that, didn't work. They said, "Our engineers have told us you damaged the port, maybe an electricity charge or water got in there". Brand new product, never took a charge.

I resolved it by taking it to a genius bar and they replaced it on the spot (outside the post/repair service). I was incredibly annoyed by the whole experience.

You have 14 days to send it back for a full refund and most Apple products come with a 1 year hardware warranty. Something isn't adding up.

3 years in western countries (or at least Australia, New Zealand, UK etc)

Not if they say you "intentionally damaged" the port. Given I only tried the charger once, this was pretty annoying.

I paid the higher of these two sums to replace a curved screen in my phone.

$199 for just glass is truly a lot.

Depending on the car you can replace your curved windshield for the same price.

To be fair windshields don't have built-in OLED panels but yes, years ago I replaced the windshield in my old Corolla for less.

If you pay >1000$ for a phone, you deserve to pay 200$ for a cracked back. They should make it 500$ just for the LULz.

I use my phone more than anything else I own. Why would I balk at a few hundred dollars extra?

So you're in agreement right?

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