Cracked Screen: Repair It First or Sell It As It Is

Cracked screen: repair it first or sell it as it is

This is the question asked most often at the counter, and the answer is a sum with two conditions attached. The sum: what does the repair cost, and how much more is the device worth with a working screen than without one. If the repair cost is higher than that difference, then repairing in order to sell is pointless. If it is lower, it can be worth it. The conditions are about what else is wrong with the device, and about what you still want to do with it yourself.

First establish what exactly is broken

A cracked screen is not one single condition. There are four situations and they do not cost the same:

• Only the front glass is cracked, image and touch work fully.
• The glass is cracked and the touch drops out in places, or there are lines or stains in the image.
• The image is gone, but the device still works, you can hear it and it vibrates.
• The glass is intact and the image is gone anyway. Then it is often not the display but the connector or the board.

On modern devices the glass and the panel are one part. Replacing only the glass does not exist in practice, and that is why a small crack does not make the repair cheaper than a large one. That is the first expectation you have to adjust.

Why a crack is more than cosmetic

The display is what seals the device. A crack undoes that seal locally, and then dust and moisture get in. A hairline crack therefore becomes, within weeks, a dead zone in the touch layer or a dark stain that grows. On top of that: splinters along the edge cut, and a cracked screen that is used for a long time rarely ends up better than it started. Carrying on for months with a crack is a gamble, not a saving.

When repairing is worth it

• You want to use the device yourself for a year or longer. Then replacing a screen is almost always the cheapest intervention there is, certainly in combination with a new battery.
• The device is recent and otherwise in good condition, so that a new screen brings it back to a higher condition and the rest of the device is worth that.
• Everything except the screen works: battery, cameras, face recognition, charging port, speakers.
• You still need your data and the screen is not readable, so that you cannot even read it out or erase it.

When you are better off selling it as it is

• The device is already older and you are going to buy something else anyway.
• More is broken than the screen alone: back glass, battery, camera, charging port. Then you add repairs together and it mounts up quickly.
• The device has been wet. Then the screen is not the risk, the board is.
• The repair cost is higher than what the repair adds in value.

We buy devices with a cracked screen as they are; that is settled in the price. So you do not have to have something repaired first in order to get anything for it, and that is usually the point as well: you pay for the repair in full and get only part of it back. How the pricing works is set out at sell your device.

Beware of a cheap repair before selling

The quality of the part matters more here than on a device you keep yourself. A non-original display can mean that True Tone and automatic brightness drop out, that the colours or the brightness deviate, that the touch is missing at the edges, and that a message about an unknown part stays in the settings. On top of that it ends up in the parts and service history of the device, and a buyer or a trade-in company looks at that. So a cheap repair to push the selling price up can actually lower that price. Repair it properly, or do not repair it.

What you sort out before you sell

1. Make a backup, through iCloud or through a computer. Do that first, even if the screen still works, because a cracked device can fail from one day to the next.
2. Sign out: Settings, your name at the top, sign out right at the bottom. Turn off Find My iPhone.
3. Erase the device: Settings, General, Transfer or Reset iPhone, Erase All Content and Settings.
4. Take the SIM card out and note down the IMEI number before you send the device off.

If the screen is not readable, erasing is still possible through a computer: connect it, put it in recovery mode and restore it. Note: that erases the data but not the activation lock. You have to release that by removing the device from your account in iCloud, through Find My on another device or on the website. If that does not happen, the next user is stuck at activation. For that reason we do not buy devices with an active iCloud account, a SIM lock or an MDM lock: they cannot be activated and therefore cannot be sold on.

How the price works with us

You enter the model, the condition and the faults and you get a price. That trade-in price is fixed for 14 days, so you have time to request a repair price in the meantime and put the two side by side without the offer changing under your hands. Once approved, payment follows within two working days, and sending it within Belgium and the Netherlands is free. Devices that no longer start up at all are interesting too, because in the workshop in Zarren the work is done at board level with micro-soldering.

The third way

There is an option people forget. Have the screen and the battery replaced and keep the device as a second device, or pass it on within the family. A device a few years old with a new screen and a new battery is a full-fledged phone for someone who does not need a new one, and then no device has to be bought anywhere. That is not the most expensive choice and not the worst one either.

In summary

Repair it if you are keeping the device yourself or if the rest of the device is worth it. Sell it as it is if you are replacing it anyway, if more is broken, or if the device has been wet. In both cases make a backup first, sign out, and request the two prices before you decide. The sum is then a sum and not a feeling.