Signs a Used Phone Had Previous Screen Repairs

When you buy a used phone, it can be risky since sellers somehow forget to mention previous screen repairs. The phone looks perfect and the price fits your budget and the seller promises that it’s never been damaged. Then you get it home and something feels off about the display or maybe the touch response is a bit sluggish compared to what you’re used to.

Screen damage causes about 40% of all phone repairs and the quality of replacement screens varies quite a bit across the market. A professional repair shop that uses OEM parts can restore a phone to perfect condition. But if the owner goes for the cheapest option available, they’ll probably have to put up with all kinds of problems. Colors won’t look right and the brightness could be way off and the touch response could be sluggish or inconsistent. The quality of the repair work that was previously done really affects the value of the phone and how much life you can expect to get out of it.

A handful of simple inspection techniques will show you any previous screen work on any phone and the same methods work just as well if you’re checking one out in person or after it arrives from an online seller. The whole used phone market opens up with way less worry involved.

Let’s find the obvious signs that can show a phone’s screen repair history!

How to Spot Screen Replacement Signs

The edges of a used phone tell you quite a bit about what that phone has been through, and hardly anybody pays attention to these little clues. Factory-original screens are made to exact specifications and the makers design them to sit flush with the frame – no gaps, no wiggle room at all.

Aftermarket screens are a different story though. It’s really hard for the replacement screen makers to match that perfect factory fit. Even small gaps or uneven spacing around the edges usually suggests that the phone has been opened up and the screen has been swapped out at some point.

The bezel width is one of the most reliable ways to check. Factory screens have identical spacing on all four sides of the phone. A difference of even a millimeter between one side and another suggests that the phone has been through a repair shop. Older phones with home buttons make this even easier to find. The button should sit flush with the screen surface. Any weird gaps or raised areas around the button usually indicate the screen isn’t original.

A quick check is to run your fingernail along the seam where the screen meets the metal frame. Factory screens lie flat against the frame with no bumps, ridges or raised edges anywhere. The speaker grilles and camera cutouts are also worth a close look since these areas usually don’t line up right after a technician replaces the screen.

The reason for these signs is all about the nature of phone damage and the limits of repairs. Phone frames usually bend slightly during drops even if the damage isn’t visible to the naked eye. Repair technicians then have to work with that slightly warped frame and aftermarket screens just don’t adjust to these imperfections the way that original parts do. The replacement screen could be a fraction of a millimeter too thick or the adhesive might not match the original factory specifications.

Corners need a closer look because the alignment problems usually show up there before anywhere else. When tilting the phone at different angles, you can sometimes see gaps or uneven spacing around the corners that weren’t visible right away.

How to Find a Replacement Screen

A used phone’s screen can tell you quite a bit about its repair history and the quality of the display is usually the first place where replacement parts give themselves away. Aftermarket screens almost never look quite the same as what came on the phone originally. Most of the replacement panels out there have color reproduction that’s noticeably off from what you’d expect. The whites on the screen could have a bluish cast to them or they’d lean toward yellow instead of the crisp pure white that manufacturers calibrate their original screens to produce.

You can test for this without much effort. Turn the brightness all the way up and if you can get another phone of the exact same model, compare them side by side. Replacement screens usually can’t get nearly as bright as the originals do. The parts just aren’t the same quality and they don’t have the same power capabilities either. The viewing angle test is another reliable way to check. Hold the phone flat in front of you then slowly tilt it back and watch how the colors and the brightness change as the angle changes. Original screens keep their colors accurate and their brightness steady even when you’re not looking at them straight on. Cheaper replacements will change their colors around or dim quite a bit if you view them from an angle.

A quick test that works on any phone is to pull up a blank white page or just open an empty document. Check the whole screen closely and see if any parts of it look darker or have a different shade than the rest. An original screen will show the white evenly across the entire display without any differences at all. Replacement screens usually have backlight problems that create darker patches or areas that just don’t match with everything else on the screen.

The contrast gets very obvious if you have two phones sitting side by side – one that has its original screen still in place and the other with a replacement installed. The visual difference is usually big enough that anyone can see it. Without that direct comparison though, you’ll need to pay closer attention to these display features if you want to see the evidence of a screen repair.

Physical Signs of a Past Repair

Adhesive residue around the edges of a phone screen is actually one of the most reliable ways to tell if it’s been repaired before. Professional repair shops always take the time to clean away every bit of the old glue before a new screen goes on and they’re very careful about it. The less experienced repair shops usually leave traces of that old adhesive behind. Running your finger along the seam where the screen meets the phone frame will usually let you feel it – rough patches or sticky areas that shouldn’t be there on a phone that still has its original screen.

A bright light can show another common issue with replacement screens – dust particles that got trapped beneath the glass during installation. The repair shops that cut corners don’t always have the right clean room environment for this work and even the tiniest speck of dust can get sealed inside the phone during the repair process. Once those particles are in there and they’re never coming out – they just sit there under the glass forever.

Water resistance takes a big hit after most screen repairs too. Modern phones have official ratings that protect them against moisture and splashes and manufacturers spend tons of time and money on those seals. Aftermarket screens almost never match that level of protection, though. Even if the repair shop claims the phone is still water-resistant, those replacement seals almost never work like the originals. A phone that could survive a bit of rain or an accidental spill before the repair might not survive the same situation afterward.

The edges of the screen can also tell you plenty about the repair quality if you test them gently with a bit of pressure. The adhesive isn’t doing its job when a screen lifts slightly or feels flexible under pressure. Repair shops sometimes make up for screens that don’t fit quite right by piling on the extra glue and you can see the thick buildup around the edges where they tried to force everything to stay in place.

These physical clues show almost everything about a phone’s repair history and if the work was actually done right. Every repair leaves behind its traces on the device once you learn which signs matter most.

How to Test Your Touch Screen

After you’ve given the physical screen a careful inspection, the next step is to run some functional tests to see how well the touchscreen actually responds. A quick and easy test is to use the memo app on your phone. Open it up and use your finger to draw diagonal lines from one corner of the screen all the way to the opposite corner. Do this slowly and deliberately and watch for any areas where the line unexpectedly breaks or jumps to a different place. Dead zones like these are one of the most common problems with aftermarket screens and they’re almost impossible to miss when you test for them this way.

Multi-touch gestures almost never work right on replacement screens either. Go ahead and open a photo or a map, then try that two-finger pinch-to-zoom that we all use all the time. Test some three-finger swipes while you’re at it. Aftermarket digitizers will either miss one of your fingers or lag badly enough that the whole phone feels broken. The edges of the screen deserve extra attention during your testing. Lower-quality replacements usually have accuracy problems near the bezels, right where the digitizer hardware connects to the phone’s mainboard. Run your finger along each edge of the screen and check that every swipe and tap registers correctly. Many replacement screens have dead areas in these places.

Another problem with aftermarket screens is that they’ll sometimes register touches when nobody’s actually touching them at all. These phantom touches can be frustrating to live with. To test for this, just set your phone down on a table and watch the screen for a couple of minutes. Random taps and swipes that happen by themselves mean the digitizer is probably defective.

Temperature is a big factor in this. A replacement screen might work fine in your house but then it goes haywire when you walk outside in the summer heat or winter cold. Budget digitizers are especially bad about this – they just can’t handle temperature changes at all.

For the most thorough test possible, download a drawing app or fire up a game that needs precise touch controls. Try to draw smooth circles or write out your signature in the drawing app. An original screen will produce clean and smooth lines that follow your finger perfectly. A replacement digitizer will usually produce shaky, delayed or broken lines that show just how poor the touch response is.

Advanced Features You Should Test

After you’ve confirmed the touchscreen responds to all your taps and swipes, there’s actually a whole list of advanced features you should test next. Replacement screens frequently skip these features and you probably won’t notice them at first unless you specifically look for them.

True Tone and Night Shift are two of the most common casualties after you get a non-original screen installed. The replacement screen needs specific ambient light sensors for these features to work and most aftermarket manufacturers don’t bother to put them in. The settings menu will still show the options like everything’s normal. But if you try to toggle them on, nothing changes on your display. Auto-brightness relies on those same missing sensors and you’re stuck manually changing your screen brightness throughout the day as lighting conditions change around you.

Phones with 3D Touch or Force Touch need a particular test – the screen must actually sense how hard you’re pressing on it. Nearly all aftermarket screen manufacturers leave out the pressure-sensing hardware because it makes their screens way too expensive to produce. Without it those shortcuts and preview features that used to work with a firm press are just gone.

The proximity sensor is another feature that frequently stops working after a screen repair. An easy way to test this is to make a phone call and hold the device against your ear like you normally would. The screen should automatically turn off to stop accidental button presses. But if the sensor isn’t working, your ear ends up hitting random buttons during conversations. Even worse, a broken proximity sensor means that your phone might dial random numbers as it’s sitting in your pocket.

Face ID presents its own set of challenges because the TrueDepth camera system sits right near the screen assembly. Repair technicians sometimes accidentally damage these delicate parts during the replacement process. The front camera might still take fine selfies but Face ID will refuse to recognize your face. For anyone with a newer iPhone model, this actually forces you to enter your passcode manually every time you need to unlock your device.

Missing features like these change how you use your phone every day. A cheaper screen replacement can save you money at first and that’s tempting. The problem is that you lose plenty of convenience and functionality that gets frustrating fast.

Trade Your Old Phone for Cash Today

The more repaired screens you look at, the better you’ll get at trusting your own judgment with these devices. A repair doesn’t necessarily mean that a phone is bad news – tons of phones have had their screens professionally replaced with genuine parts and they work just as well as they did fresh from the factory. These inspection techniques matter because they help you tell the difference between a phone that was fixed right by a skilled technician and one that got the absolute cheapest repair possible with low-quality parts and sloppy workmanship.

These skills prove valuable in other situations too. Master the basics of phone inspection and suddenly it’s easy to tell if a repair shop did the work they charged for, and it also explains those wild price swings in the used phone market – why two phones with identical specs can cost different amounts. That suspiciously cheap phone online? The seller probably left out some interesting repair history.

The best part is that these situations don’t have to feel like a total gamble anymore. You can cut through whatever sales pitch a seller throws at you and review the device that’s sitting right there in front of you. This knowledge lets you make bids that match what the phone is actually worth and maybe even better, keeps you from spending too much money on a device that has more problems than you realized. This tips the scales in your direction when you’re ready to buy your next phone.

On the subject of phone decisions, if you have an old device collecting dust in a drawer somewhere, at ecoATM we have an easy way to convert it into cash for your next upgrade. Our network includes over 6,000 kiosks across the country where you can have your phone evaluated right there and walk away with instant cash or an electronic payment the same day.

It only takes a minute to find a kiosk near you and then you’ll know exactly what your old phone is worth – and it’s a responsible way to put some money toward that next device as we take care of keeping electronics out of landfills!