iPhone X- What You Need to Know About Repairs

Note: If you’re simply interested in having your iPhone X fixed, you don’t need to read this entire article! We offer repairs UK and Western Europe-wide- to find out more contact us here. You can also visit our stores in Dundee (Tel. 01382 22 66 26) and St Andrews (Tel. 01334 47 88 66).

So- it turns out that within ten months of going on sale, the iPhone X was already history- replaced by the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR. That said, anyone in the independent phone repair business should still be keeping an eye out for the first anniversary of its launch, next month.

This is also the point at which the standard one year warranty on the first iPhones sold will run out- which in turn means that, unless the customer has paid extra for AppleCare, any subsequent repairs will be at Apple’s typically expensive out-of-warranty prices. (That’s assuming they’re even prepared to offer an out-of-warranty repair on a particular fault- this frequently isn’t the case).

Regardless, it’s safe to assume that the number of customer seeking more reasonably-priced iPhone X repairs from independent, non-Apple-affiliated businesses will gradually increase in the following months.

As a result, we’ve brought you this list of various repair issues associated with the iPhone X that you’re likely to have to consider more in the near future.

(It’s worth pointing out that much of this will quite likely apply to the XS- at least- and probably the XS Max as well. However, those two are newly-launched at the time of writing, so less likely to be a common sight for independent repairers in the near future).

Screen Issues

The iPhone X’s design is completely different to older models. Most significantly, it’s the first iPhone model with an OLED screen rather than an LCD one. The downside is that this also means replacements are very expensive when it gets broken.

Reported issues with the iPhone X screen include green lines, no touch and various other problems, even when the screen itself isn’t cracked. It’s often worth checking with Apple in cases like these- even if your phone’s regular warranty has expired- since Apple will often fix phones with known issues for free, so long as they’re not otherwise damaged.

Copy Screens

When it first came out, there weren’t any “copy screens” for the iPhone X. (That is, replacement screens that are designed and manufactured from scratch completely independently of Apple by third-party companies). However, they started arriving in the months that followed.

The types of iPhone X “copy” screen can be grouped into three basic types, based upon different dispay technologies:-

• TFT LCD – By far the poorest quality, these don’t even use the same display technology as the original screen. They have a thicker bezel, and refresh rate, touch and general picture quality are all significantly inferior to the original- not to mention that they run very hot. The main motivation for their existence is that they’re easier to manufacture and cheaper to buy and fit. (Many shops will do that without making it clear to the customer whose phone it is). They’re typically far inferior to Apple’s genuine LCD displays, let alone their OLEDs.
• Hard OLED (“ZY”) – These were the first type of third-party OLED screen to be launched. The picture quality is an improvement on the third-party LCDs- admittedly not a very high bar in itself!- but they still have touch problems and run hot.
• Flexible OLED (“GX”) – These are closest, in technological terms, to the flexible OLED-based original displays. They’re also the best of the three in terms of general quality.

An iPhone X screen replacement we carried out just over a week ago. As you can see, this required disassembling an iPhone X in order to fit the new screen.

You can see the old (damaged) screen at the top and its replacement below.

Due to the known issues with copy screens and general unreliability, we still can’t even recommend them- not even the flexible OLED-based versions. However, we’d actively avoid the LCD-based ones. Even when LCD-based copies were being sold as replacements for Apple’s own LCDs, the quality of them was still significantly inferior to the originals (e.g. poor brightness, contrast, colour saturation, resolution, viewing angle, etc.). Many were so mismatched in terms of electrical specification that they could damage the backlight circuit (amongst others). As slot-in replacements for an OLED, chances are copy LCDs are going to be even more mismatched and look even worse in comparison.

Almost complete- the new screen is installed and apparently working. Now we have to test it and screw the phone back together.

Phone repaired, everything passed with flying colours!

Other issues

There are a number of other non-screen issues to note about the iPhone X design:-

• No Home Button, but Face ID Paired– There’s no home button- and hence Touch ID- to worry about, but the iPhone X relies instead on Face ID, which is paired like the home button. If this gets broken, then only Apple can pair the new Face ID.
• Glass Back Vulnerability– The iPhone X has a glass back, which means it still suffers from the same vulnerability as the iPhone 8 and 8+. Regardless of how tough it is compared to other types of glass, the iPhone X back is still at more risk of breaking than non-glass backs, and very expensive to replace.
• New Motherboard Design– The motherboard design is completely different, and consists of two boards sandwiched together. This makes board-level repairs far more difficult, although not impossible for experienced technicians.

These changes in general- but the new motherboard design in particular- are making life harder, and it’s likely that many lower-skilled companies will be forced out of business, with only the better ones remaining.