Experiences with local vs. remote phone repairs with Assurant
October 31, 2022 10:53 AM   Subscribe

My Pixel 6 Pro got pretty badly damaged in a bad fall. Both sides are cracked and the top 3/4 of the screen no longer are touch sensitive and the part that does work is wonky. I have repair coverage through Assurant who are offering me a local repair via a local repair shop for $30 or just replacing it entirely for $130 or so. Any experiences with getting local repair for that type of damage?

Obviously I'd rather pay less, but I'm concerned that the damage is extensive enough that a local repair shop (uBreakFix) might say that they can't handle it or that they'd do an incomplete job requiring multiple trips to get it fixed (the repair options are all places I have no reason to be so would require a specific trip). I have 0 experience with any local repair shop for this kind of thing but they seem to have a decent reputation (including this specific location). I know that replacing the glass is pretty routine at this point, I'm specifically worried about what's causing the touch functionality not to work.

The replacement device option is frictionless but $100 isn't the sort of money I casually throw around but my time is worth something. The potential downside is that it would be a refurb replacement and while I've had good luck buying other electronics as a refurb, there's always the chance that it'll appear fine for a while and then whatever was the initial problem will resurface.

Any experiences either way?
posted by Candleman to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)
 
I've had a couple of phones repaired at uBreakiFix under an Assurant policy in the last two years -- both Pixels, if it matters. The first went off without a hitch. The second came back and swipe to type wasn't working very well for my husband (who types ridiculously quickly and has large fingers -- it worked fine for me). I re-contacted Google/Assurant, and they then sent me a refurb for free. The refurb seems totally ok. I think the big unknown is your time -- a refurb is likely to fix it about as well as possible off the bat, and you may have to do a couple of rounds if you opt for repair.
posted by another zebra at 11:05 AM on October 31, 2022 [1 favorite]


There are many reports of repair shops screwing up the fingerprint sensor when repairing displays on the Pixel 6/Pixel 6 Pro. Sometimes they just fail to run the calibration tool, which you can do yourself, but not always.

If it were me, I'd probably just take the refurb and be done with it, but I don't have any particular attachment to the data that's only on the phone in my hand. Everything I care about is somewhere in the cloud, too.
posted by wierdo at 9:13 PM on October 31, 2022


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