Mobile

iPhone 8: glass back ‘very difficult’ to solve and costs much more than screen to exchange

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The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus have glass backs that, if smashed, be more expensive to restore as opposed to screen.

The new plates, which bring glass into the back of Apple smartphones initially in four years, are installed permit wireless charging, but introduce a whole new point of failure.

Apple claims that its glass since the screen and also the back on the iPhone 8 is “the most durable glass ever in a smartphone”, but the company have not divulged the way in which you are looking for that determination and in what way considerably more durable its when compared to Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5, attached to rival smartphones for example the Samsung Galaxy S8. How durable the glass in fact is should become apparent when users inevitably begin dropping their 700-plus smartphones.

The metal reinforcement from the glass back panel represents element of Apple’s durability efforts. A teardown within the iPhone 8 by repair site iFixit reveals that beneath the glass is often a metal sheet which includes a hole to use centre to produce space with the wireless charging coil. That metal sheet is stuck towards glass panel by “lots” of glue, depending on iFixit, while the repairers in conclusion that although “the toughness for the glass back remains seen – replacements are usually very difficult”.

That means a third-party repair of your glass panel is either usually extremely hard or too expensive, even compared to the screen. Apple’s own AppleCare+ for any iPhone 8, that amounted to 129, covers up to two damage repairs for two main years. To the screen too many 25 is born, but repairs to your glass over the back of just covered within the “other damage” the main plan. Based on AppleInsider, this costs 79 when, making a corner panel much more than 3x as expensive because screen.

It’s also probable that what Apple apparently calls “mass destruction” of the rear case from the iPhone 8 could lead to Apple refusing to honour the 79 AppleCare+ repair excess, instead charging the company’s out from warranty pricing of 356.44 for “other damage”, in line with Apple staff talking to AppleInsider. The price are higher for your larger iPhone 8 Plus, and can be for your incoming iPhone X too.

While smashing screens seems almost inevitable for just a vast number of smartphone users, the metal backs from the previous generations of iPhones have that worry out of the equation. The iPhone 8, therefore, uses a protective case inside your. But if that protection is just too thick or has metal and also other reinforcement within its back, it’ll keep the wireless charging from working and nullify any make use of getting the glass there to start with.