I’ve had my iPad since around 2013 or so. There are two very distinctive cracks in the glass which makes watching movies quite annoying. Every single day I get ads from Groupon with various places offering screen repair. Do they just replace the entire glass? Is this hard to do or will I be fine just picking a local place and using a Groupon? Oddly enough, even though I’ve had an iphone since 2011, I’ve never cracked the glass (knock on wood!)
I got my iPhone repaired through my insurance. They sent a woman from a local phone repair shop (called CPR, Cell Phone Repair) through which Verizon has a contract and she sat in my dining room and did the repair in a half hour. She removed the screen and put a replacement screen on. She did have a special toolkit but from what I could tell you could get those tools yourself.
I would have no problem using a local repair shop to do the work…they do it all the time.
The only issue with using a non-Apple repair shop is that it voids your warranty, but since yours is 2013, it’s a non issue.
Oh by the way…shortly after I had my screen repaired, I got my battery upgraded at an Apple Store. They have to remove the screen to do the battery replacement. Since I had incorrectly reported to the repair place what color screen edges I needed (some are black, some are white) I had a black-edge screen with a white button (I was supposed to have reported that I needed a white screen), and the Apple Store knew right away that I had a non-Apple-Store screen. They still did the battery upgrade, but I had to sign a waiver that if the screen broke during the procedure I would need to pony up for a new screen from Apple for $150.
I don’t think this applies to your situation either, but if you have any intention of doing a battery replacement, get it done before the coupon screen replacement.
The top glass isn’t the “screen.”
There are actually three layers - the glass, a digitizer, and the LCD itself. Usually, only the glass breaks, so the iPad is usable, if annoying.
The glass and digitizer are laminated together, so they are generally replaced as one item. I’ve done several of these, and it isn’t too bad a repair.
Any Mall kiosk should be able to do a good job.
This is not (always) true.
Some iPads have all 3 laminated together.
There are lots of Youtube videos on screen replacements; you might consider doing it yourself.
Oddly enough Batteries Plus does iphone/ipad repair if you need a local place.
No its not necessary hard to do, all they would do is heat the screen with a heatgun or oven. This would be to warm up the adhesive, then they would just replace the screen with a new piece of glass.
You could DIY and buy a kit but its mildly difficult and could be risky, the biggest risk is overheating the tablet and damaging the internals. Any local shop would do fine after 2-3 you really get the hang of it any any reputable shop would have seen plenty by now.
By the way how is the battery life holding up on that unit? You could have them replace the battery too as long as they are taking it apart.
Visit www.ifixit.com. They have parts, tools, and extremely detailed instruction manuals for repairing many models of phones and tablets. You can freely review the instructions for the item you want to fix and see if it’s something you’d like to try. I replaced the battery in my phone a couple of months ago using their tools/parts/instructions, and it went great. Even with the purchase of tools, I’m pretty sure I saved money versus having it professionally repaired.
I feel that my time is worth $25 an hour so, when trying to determine whether or not a do-it-yourself venture will actually save me money, I factor that into the equation.
So, my question is, if I factor in my $25 an hour rule, would I be saving any kind of significant money after ordering the part, paying for shipping, downloading the directions, studying the directions, and performing the task as opposed to simply sending it out for repair?
My other concern is, did I correctly diagnose the problem? For example, I think I have a dead battery because the device will not charge or turn on but, after going through the entire process of handling that issue myself, I discover that it isn’t the battery at all. The board in the device is shot instead, so I’ve spent all that time and money for essentially nothing.
Comments?
They are a great site. I personally send my iPad and iPhones to the independent repair places around here, because I usually can’t be arsed to do it myself and don’t want to take the risk I’ll fuck it up, but if I don’t care, I’ll do it myself because it’s fun and interesting and something new to learn. And, yes, it does save you money. I’m not that productive with my free time, so the time I spend fixing the damned thing is worth the time I would have spent dicking around on the Dope or Youtube or whatever, so, totally a better use of my time than that. 
Well, if you take it to a “pro”, either they’ll insist you order a specific repair service (i.e., force you to diagnose the problem yourself, which you seem worried you’ll get wrong), or do the full diagnosis and repair process.
The former option is usually a single fixed price for a specific repair, and if it doesn’t solve the problem, too bad. It makes obvious sense when the failure is unmistakable and the diagnosis indisputable.
The latter option is an open-ended process, in both time and money terms. And you’ll be charged for every failed repair before they hit the correct one. So the main real difference is that in the latter, the diagnosis is done by someone with some experience (you hope) and competence (you hope) in diagnosing problems with the device. But don’t kid yourself. Anyone who’s ever taken a car to the mechanic and discovered they “had to” replace most of a system piecemeal until they uncovered the real fault, and are charging you for everything they did, knows how this can go.
The value of your time is certainly a valid consideration, as is the risk of the repair being a waste of your time/money due to misdiagnosing the problem in the first place. However, some of us derive a kind of satisfaction from the DIY experience that may partially or completely offset actual dollar figures involved. This sentiment is nicely summed up in a short passage from the book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:”
If you’re not the kind of person who enjoys DIY tinkering/repair, then this sort of value doesn’t exist for you, and it’s then sensible to make the DIY/pro repair decision on a simple dollar basis, assuming some reasonable value for your time.
FWIW, I value my personal time at much more than $25 an hour. Hard to pin down a number, but I can’t think of a job I’d do in my spare time for just $25/hr. In the case of fixing my phone, yeah, it took maybe 90 minutes, so if i pinned some reasonable dollar figure on my time, one might conclude from a simple cost analysis that I should have let a pro do it.