iPhone4 cracked glass, please help!

September 5, 2010 11:23 AM

iPhone 4: Cracked from glass...what are my options?

I had the bumper on my brand new iphone 4 and dropped it. I think it landed completely flat on the screen side and cracked.

I have been able to get out of 2 year contract because of the terrible service in my new location (my complaints are legitimate and began well before I cracked the screen). AT&T is refunding the ETF.

I have a work phone that I have been using in its place, so it's not imperative that I replace my personal phone.

Would you recommend selling the cracked iphone 4 on ebay? If so, how could I maximize its resale value (jailbreak it?)?

It seems like there is no DIY fix for the iphone 4 yet, and the other solutions are pretty expensive ($200?). Should I wait for the cheaper, DIY solutions to come out? I am pretty handy and could fix it myself given the right supplies.

Thanks for your input!

posted by jdlugo to Technology (7 answers total)

There are DIY solutions out there, but they're sitll not cheap - iResQ has parts, depending on what you need (not an endorsement, but they seem pretty popular).

The biggest killer to the value of that phone would possibly be the loss of warranty. Getting it done someplace Apple-Certified might help, I really don't know how that works out.
posted by Rendus at 11:33 AM on September 5, 2010

Best answer: Yeah, i doubt there will ever be a sub-$100 fix for screen glass on the iPhone 4. On the previous model, the screen glass and the digitizer (the part that senses your touch) were two separate parts, making it relatively cheap to replace the glass. On the iPhone 4, these two parts are fused, so if you replace the glass, you need to replace the digitizer as well.
posted by Oktober at 12:02 PM on September 5, 2010

I am entirely positive there will be a sub-$100 fix for the iPhone 4 soon enough: the market is huge. When the first iPhones came out, the aftermarket screen replacements were quite expensive. At this point, you can get glass+digitizer+LCD for a song on eBay. So, it's really just a question of how long it will take for somebody clever to reverse-engineer the glass+LCD fusing process.
posted by thejoshu at 12:55 PM on September 5, 2010

This place does it for $175. There are a number of places that do it in NYC for (i believe) less (not sure of your location though).
posted by melissasaurus at 1:26 PM on September 5, 2010

Go to the store. My friend purchased her iPhone 4 at the beginning of July and broke the screen in August. She went to the store and they replaced it free of charge. I'm not sure if they will do the same with yours, depending upon the date it was purchased, but that was how they handled hers.
posted by E-Boogie at 2:30 PM on September 5, 2010 [2 favorites]

Seconding taking it to an Apple Store. I know a couple of people who got the screen replaced for free. It seems to help if you claim that it broke because it slid off something on its own, due to the friction-free glass back.

They usually say "Normally we charge for this, but we will replace the glass for free just this once."
posted by Mwongozi at 5:29 PM on September 5, 2010

My friend dropped his and cracked it -- he took it to the Apple Store and they gave a new one for free. Try it, can't hurt.
posted by statolith at 10:08 AM on September 7, 2010