iPhone 3GS
As you know, both Sally and myself are users of the great but rather expensive iPhone 3GS. We’ve been using the iPhone 3GS since the beginning of 2010, with us previously using the brilliant iPhone 3G. The only problems till this week have mainly consisted of various software bugs, O2 network quirkiness and user error. All that changed this week when Sally started to have couple of problems with her iPhone 3GS.
It all started to go wrong when we decided to go out for a meal after Sally had finished a project she had been working on. Trouble was, we decided to have a few drinks both before and after the meal, along with going to a pub to see a couple of bands playing. It didn’t help that it was also raining very heavily and we decided to walk home.
So at some point during the evening out Sally’s phone either got wet, bumped or both. This resulted in her iPhone 3GS playing up with it randomly switching itself off during the morning after, and finished with the back-light not working at all making the screen all but impossible to view.
We did the usual switching on and off, resetting but nothing brought the back-light back. Sally was rather fond of her iPhone 3GS and was suffering from withdrawal symptoms so we had to get it working again and as quickly as possible. Firstly I tried contacting O2 but they didn’t want to know. They didn’t offer to sell us a new iPhone or repair it, which was rather strange considering how expensive they are to buy when not supported by a contract. O2, it would appear, were only interested in selling contracts, and surprisingly we weren’t offered an early upgrade to an iPhone 4.
A quick look on ebay revealed many ten’s of iPhone 3GS for sale, but reading through the various descriptions suggested that buying one off ebay would be pot luck. So we took a gamble and bought a new touch panel and new LCD screen assembly from a supplier who claimed to be supplying genuine Apple parts.
Amazingly the parts arrived the very next day well packaged, complete with a little tool kit and instructions. Now as you know, Sally is the team leader of an electronics assembly department, so she was up for the challenge of repairing her phone. It’s always a good idea to have a backup plan if something goes wrong when it comes to any kind of electronic item, and ours consisted of upgrading to an iPhone 4 (i.e our plan was very expensive). So Sally would either succeed in repairing her phone, or she would be out of pocket buy the tune of a good few hundred pounds.
Luckily Sally followed the detailed instructions to the letter, taking note of all the various warning about small very fragile connectors. It turned out that the parts supplied were the real deal so just dropped straight in without a hitch. One connector proved to be a little troublesome, but hopefully that shouldn’t come back to bite poor old Sally in a few months time. So all in all, it’s cost several hours messing around and £70 in parts to get Sally’s iPhone 3GS working again, but hopefully it’ll buy her enough time to save up a reserve fund of money to buy a brand new one should the repaired iPhone go wrong.
Taking on the repair of a complex electronic item like an iPhone 3GS should only be tackled by someone who has experience with working with state of the art electronics. Fortunately Sally had several years working on such items and knew about taking her time and observing anti-static precautions. Doing the repair herself saved having to send the iPhone 3GS off for repair and was many times cheaper than buying a brand new one, or risking buying one off ebay.