Why are screen fixes so expensive?

I dropped my roommates 3G iPhone the other day and had to pay to get it replaced. I went on the internet to see what my options were and found that Apple charges $199 to replace the screen and digitizer. I was looking around on the internet and found out that you can buy all of that from amazon for $14.44 and it takes about an hour to fix it. I also found a lot of 3rd party companies that can do it for between $30 something and $99. Long story short, I ended up paying the $210.77 after tax to get it fixed at the Apple store. My question is: why is it so expensive to get the screen fixed? I mean, it took the guy less than 10 minutes to put a new screen in, so the labor couldn't be that bad, and the parts cost around $14.44, probably less coming strait from Apple. I mean I already bought the phone from Apple, it seems they would want to keep my business by at least fixing the phone for a reasonable price like maybe $50 or so. I own a lot of Apple products and this is the first major complaint I have had, but I don't know who to contact to get a real answer about the price of the screen. Can anyone help me out?

Macbook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on Apr 20, 2010 8:32 PM

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4 replies

Apr 21, 2010 8:00 AM in response to ChrisJ4203

I am pretty sure they just replaced the screen because my roommate had some stickers on the phone and they were still on there when we got the phone back. Unless they used the original case and replaced all of the inside parts and the screen with a referb. one. This still doesn't answer the question of why they don't have a bunch of $14.44 screens lying around in the back of the store and put those on for a much cheaper price instead of replacing every phone with a cracked screen with a whole new phone? Seems a bit wasteful as well. They should save the referbs. for phones that are dropped in the water or other major problems that need the whole phone fixed.

Apr 21, 2010 9:29 AM in response to Brett Nolan

Well, they just began doing some screen replacements. I'm not sure what the pricing scheme is for that, but I'm sure it is less than the $199 you were charged. It is generally easier for them to provide a referb and then send the old phone off to have it referbed. I'm not sure where to look for pricing, but if you do a search here, I know some people have discussed it in the past, the cost of screen replacement versus a complete out of warranty exchange. I believe they have quite an inventory of referbs so replacing them is not an issue.

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Why are screen fixes so expensive?

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