Repairing my iPhone costs as much as a great Android smartphone. The wonderful ecology

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The screen would just freeze at random times. Sometimes every few seconds, sometimes once every few hours. It's impossible to predict when. It turned out that while the screen or any other element of the housing did not suffer from the fall, the screen lock button took the force of the impact. On closer inspection, you can hear a slight scratch when pressing and feel that the button is not seated as it should be.

I asked for an estimate of the cost of repair to two services - an authorized iDream and a local, unauthorized service. An unauthorized service confirmed that the button is indeed damaged and the best solution will be to replace the element in an authorized service. The authorized service priced the replacement of the element at ... PLN 2,099.

2099 PLN. In the iPhone 11, replacing one part costs more than half the value of the entire phone.

The new iPhone 11 in the cheapest version costs about PLN 3,500. My 128 GB copy cost PLN 3,749.

Repair is - to put it mildly - completely unprofitable.

I could, of course, take the iPhone to an unauthorized service center and have them try to repair the faulty component instead of replacing it. The website warned me, however, that such a procedure may be ineffective, and I would still have to pay nearly PLN 1,000 for it. Thank you, I'll stop.

So I'm left with a phone that is really fine, in which every other element works as well as on the day of purchase, but which cannot be used normally, because you never know when the screen will go blank. This has happened to me several times, for example in a store, when I tried to pay with my phone - before I touched the housing to the terminal, the screen went off and I had to wake up Apple Pay again. What's more, a few days after the fatal fall, the button became so unstable that it is difficult to make a quick double-click that wakes up Apple Pay.

It crossed my mind to - as befits a Pole-onion - try to take the iPhone to an Apple store in Germany and (perhaps) take advantage of the generosity of the Genius Bar, which usually exchanges damaged consumer equipment for new ones, and he worries about a broken copy himself. Unfortunately, the warranty on my iPhone expired exactly one week before the day of the fall. Enter cities.

IPhone repair for the price of a great Android smartphone.

While I understand why the cost of replacing parts and repairing my iPhone 11 is so high, I still can't get over the practical implications of this state of affairs. PLN 2099. I currently have test smartphones on my desk that cost less and in some respects (even screen quality) surpass the iPhone 11. You can also buy a new iPhone SE for the same price. Ridiculous when you think about it - for the price of repairing one old iPhone, you can buy another, new iPhone.

Repairing the iPhone 11 is therefore completely unprofitable. I am convinced of this for the second time - at the beginning of this year, out of pure curiosity, I asked the service how much it would cost to replace the fast one. Unfortunately, the screens of the new iPhones are soft as butter. This makes them not easy to break, but extremely easy to scratch, and the screen of my copy viewed against the light looks really bad. There are also some deep scratches that could potentially expand. The screen can be replaced, yes. For just over PLN 1,400.

So if, purely hypothetically, I wanted to bring my year-old iPhone 11 to the condition as on the day of purchase, I would have to pay PLN 3,500. The same as the cost of the new iPhone 11.* However, as the readers have rightly noticed, in such a situation, the damaged phone can be replaced at an authorized service center with a "refurbished" copy. In the case of the iPhone 11, the cost of such a replacement would also amount to PLN 2,099 and it is highly probable that as part of the "repair" of the sleep / wake button, it would also be proposed to replace the device with such a copy.

Giving Apple what's Apple's - according to iFixit, the iPhone 11 is easier to repair than, for example, the new Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. In the list, the iPhone 11 received a "repairability" rating of 6/10. It is a pity that the iFixit report does not mention that although yes - the phone can be repaired relatively easily - the cost of repair makes it a completely unprofitable undertaking.

It is so absurd that Apple has been proud of its ecological approach to the world for several years. Ultimately, all new equipment is to be made of recycled aluminum, the company also tries to recover as much metal as possible used for the production of components to reuse them, and in the package with the new iPhone we will not find a charger, because "why litter the planet". At the same time, the same company creates equipment whose repair is completely unprofitable, even when it comes to replacing a single element.

If it hadn't been for the fall, I would have been using the iPhone 11 for at least a year more. Maybe I'd even pass it on to a family member later. Because whatever you say about Apple's smartphones, they (if we don't break them) beat any rival with longevity and manufacturer support. I didn't plan on replacing my phone this year.

In the current situation, however, I don't have much choice - I have to buy a new smartphone.

And as the premiere of the iPhone 12 is just around the corner, and its prices are to be identical to the prices of current models, buying an iPhone 11 or 11 Pro does not make any sense at the moment. With a damaged 11, I have nothing to do. I can either fix it for sick money or recycle it, which is like throwing money in the trash. I can also try to sell it for pennies to someone who may repair it using unauthorized parts, but this is also not a profitable solution, because as an entrepreneur I would have to pay tax on this sale. So I will be left with a nice paperweight, for which I paid nearly PLN 4,000 just a year earlier.

And now I regret that over the last year I have grown so much into the Apple ecosystem and got used to the convenience offered by iOS, because if it wasn't for that, I would now buy an Android smartphone on principle. 99% choice. however, it will fall on the new iPhone. But the taste will remain.

Tags: AppleiPhone 11iphone 11 repair costiPhone 11 reviewsiPhone 11 screen replacement