Getting the 5.8-inch OLED display of the iPhone X repaired from Apple is an expensive process. With Apple charging hundreds of dollars for a screen replacement if you don’t have Apple Care for your iPhone X, it is not surprising that many people end up getting their screen replaced from a third-party repair store which charges significantly less than Apple.
There were reports of the ambient light sensor not working on iPhone X units with an aftermarket display. However, that is unlikely to force many iPhone X owners with a broken screen to get their device repaired directly from Apple and pay significantly higher for it. So, apart from a non-functional ambient light sensor, is there any other difference in an aftermarket iPhone X display used by third-party repair shops?
As the video from ETrade Supply below shows, there’s actually a fair amount of difference. The team used one OEM iPhone X display along with two aftermarket iPhone X displays for the comparison.
The aftermarket displays lacked connector contacts at the bottom which would mean that any iPhone X featuring a third-party display would have inferior network performance compared to one from Apple. More surprisingly perhaps, these aftermarket displays are thicker than the OEM replacement panels from Apple. The thicker display unit means the iPhone X would end up being slightly thicker as well after the installation. The difference is very small here (7.57mm vs 8mm) but it is still one that exists.
The aftermarket replacement displays also have poor color accuracy, uneven backlighting, and even 3D Touch did not function properly on them either. What’s interesting is that the aftermarket displays were not an OLED panel as found on the iPhone X but LCD panels. Given how expensive OLED panels are to manufacture, it is not surprising that aftermarket iPhone X replacement displays are LCD panels. What’s surprising is that the manufacture of these aftermarket panels managed to get their LCD panels to work with the iPhone X.
Have you gotten the display of your iPhone X replaced by a third-party repair store? If yes, have you noticed any difference in quality compared to the original display?
