The Important Points
- When we receive your screens for recycling, we look at them to determine which ones are acceptable and which aren’t.
- Unlike many other companies, we don’t “grade” screens. Ours are divided simply into “accept” and “reject”.
- We CANNOT accept the following
- Copy/aftermarket/third-party screens – NO – We only accept OEM and Non-OEM screens
- Broken screens – NO – This includes those with pixel damage
- Screens with flex issues – NO
- Screens with bruising – NO
- Please see our gallery of screens to see what is and isn’t acceptable
- If you want more details, pleas contact us
Introduction
Whenever we receive screens for recycling, the first thing we do is to go through the consignment and determine what is in acceptable condition and what isn’t. We’ll then email the customer a report to confirm that they’re happy to accept what we’re offering.
On occasion, a customer will express disappointment at a higher-than-expected number of rejected screens. This obviously isn’t our aim- it’s in both our interests for our customers to know where they stand, and it’s for this reason we’ve written this article.
Simple Accept/Reject Grading
The majority of LCD recycling companies have different grading options for the LCDs they recycle and they usually have tiers such as A, B, C and D. The problem with having so many grading options is that no two people have the same standard and it can lead to disappointment when you’re expecting to be paid much more than you’ve been offered. Companies will, of course, always offer their highest price for a grade A screen, but many will be looking for ways to downgrade a given display so that they can pay less.
We try to keep things simple by having just two grades of screen- working and not working. However, in the interest of full transparency, we’d like to explain the criteria we use to arrive at this decision.
Reasons for Screen Rejection
Damage in Transit
Firstly, we shouldn’t have to say this, but it’s important to package your screens correctly to ensure they get to us in good condition! Most orders we receive are well packed but we still receive a few where it’s clear that some of the screens will have been damaged in the post. Using images 1 and 2 below as an example, we can see that the screens have obviously been rattling about inside the box and further damage will have occurred. We recommend putting each screen in a bubble bag, or wrapping them in bubble wrap, and then packing them tightly in a box the appropriate size. (For more details, see our article on how to pack your screens).
Once we’ve received your screens we lay them out and separate them into piles of corresponding models, ready to be checked. If you’ve ever recycled screens with us and received a report, you’ll see that we then split them into “working” and “not working”.
The screens that are “working” are in turn split into “OEM” and “Non-OEM” (and for the iPhone X we also have “bad touch”). Those not working, we split into “broken”, “bad flex”, “copy LCD” and “LCD bruised”.
Copy Screens
The first thing we look out for are any copy screens in the package- we don’t waste our time even checking these as we don’t accept copy screens at all.
Even though we already have an article outlining OEM, Non-OEM and copy screens, we still receive copy screens in many packages. As outlined in the previous article, we will buy the following screens:-
- OEM – An original screen that came in the device when it was new and has never been refurbished or replaced.
- Non-OEM – An original screen that has been refurbished previously.
We will not buy the following screens:-
- Aftermarket, copy or third party screens – We do not buy these, and if you’re in this industry you really should be able to distinguish the difference between an original and aftermarket screen. Copy screens have no resale value whatsoever and go straight in the bin.
Examples of non-OEM screens that we accept can be seen in images 3 to 6 above.
Broken Screens
With the majority of flat screens, it is pretty obvious when one is broken. However, this isn’t the case for curved screens. Often when a curved screen is broken it looks okay, but on closer inspection, at the curved area of the screen, you can frequently see a small black dot. We can’t accept any screen if it has any form of breakage. (Examples of such screens can be seen in images 7 to 9 below).
Similarly, with OLED screens there is sometimes what is known as “press damage”, where the breakages have damaged the pixels under the glass. Again, such screens cannot be accepted. (See images 10 and 11 below).
Flex issues
There are a few different types of screen issue that fall under this category. If the screen will not turn on we will normally list this as a flex issue. The screen may well be broken, but if we can’t get a picture to check this, we will determine it has a flex issue.
In addition, screens with touch issues, lines on the screen (image 12 above), a jumping picture or picture fading (image 16 below) are all listed as having a flex issue. Similarly, those with a torn 3D Touch flex cable (images 13 to 15 below) are also classed as having a flex issue.
LCD Bruising
We have found that “LCD Bruising” (or marks) is by far the most missed single problem for anyone sending screens to us. Most times when our clients remove the screen from their customer’s phone they run basic checks to make sure the picture and touch are working. When we receive the screen and check for bruising they can’t understand how we have come to this conclusion if the screen was working when they removed it from the device.
To see the bruising and marks you need to check the screen on a black background and often need to turn off the lights. This is easy on a black iPhone screen as you can see it on the boot screen but not so easy on a white one. Similarly, with Samsung screens, you need to look on a single-coloured screen to check for screen burn.
Most times bruising can be described as red, blue, white or green marks on the screen, especially where the glass is cracked. Also, often there are a lot of bright coloured pixels formed in a cluster together. Unfortunately, we can’t accept those screens as the damage is permanent and won’t go away.
(For examples of bruising, see images 17, 18, 19, 20 and 23 above and below. For examples of pixel damage, see images 21, 22 and 24 below.)
Conclusion
For a brief overview of what we do and do not accept, please see the images below.
We hope this information gives an insight into how we check the screens and what screens we can accept. If you still have any questions or queries, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.
We Accept – Screens with white spots (left and centre) or liquid damage (right)
We Accept – Screens with yellow marks caused by pressure (left) or with waves on backlight due to overheating (centre)
We DO NOT Accept – Screens with bruising
We DO NOT Accept – Screens with breakages (left and centre), not even where it is hard to see on the edge of a curved AMOLED display (right)
We DO NOT Accept – Screens with pixel damage (left and centre) or bruising (right)
We DO NOT Accept – Screens with bruising
We DO NOT Accept – Screens with torn 3D Touch cables
We DO NOT Accept – Screens with fading (left), home button cable missing (centre) or visible lines (right)
