Changwonderful
I dropped a phone. The screen broke. The back screen broke. A beautiful pane of shattered touch-screen glass all over a classroom. A thousand shards in a fingertip. Apple products aren’t that hard to repair yourself. The guides at www.ifixit.com are comprehensive and unsoiled. Here’s the typical end-user experience of modern electronic
DIY:
- Buy replacement parts online. Feel self-satisfaction.
- Attempt repair without wearing static bracelet.
- Tear into two pieces the U-bend of the dock connector cable securing the screen to the logic board and speaker housing.
- Destroy the camera assembly by prizing it free with a plastic removal tool.
- Use tweezers to gouge out your own eyes.
- Throw phone out of a second story window (specifically).
- Claim for new phone on accidental damage component of home insurance.
- Note the excess on insurance equal to cost of repair by professional. Feel opposite of self-satisfaction.
iFix Korea is a place where you, the owner of an Apple mobile product, can travel to get that mobile product repaired for minimal effort on your part and maximal returns viz. efficiency of money spent. Prices listed (in full) on the website (linked at end of article) do not appear indicative of in-store prices–having received a front and rear screen replacement for 50,000 finest Sejongs, the disparity equates to around 15,000.
A word of warning: the proprietor and franchisee of the store’s Changwon location made a small error in connecting the screen to my phone during the 15-minute wait period spent by me reclining in a leather armchair, resulting in him having to repeat the process. He was happy to do so and seemed quite shocked when the error was made clear to him. Second time round, all was and remains well, although I did drop my phone when I was chopping some wood and it cracked the screen again.
iFix will also work with insurance if you speak the requisite Korean required to have established an insurance contract with a phone shop (you may have one in your neighborhood) and utter this to the man at iFix.
iFix Korea will fix Macbooks, Blackberrys, Motorola, Google Nexus, iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches, and will for financial gain replace free-of-labor-charges the Power Dome Switch, Home Button, Mid Frame, LCD Assembly, Battery (35,000 Sejongs), Dock Connector, Home Flex Cable, Induction Senser Flex (sic), Phonejack Flex Cable, Earpiece Receiver Unit, Camera, Front Camera; the process of getting a bus is much easier than the process of repair, Motor Vibrator, Loud Speaker (sic), Antenna Sticker (referring to the method of attachment of antenna rather than a decorative piece), Front Bezel; the cost of bus and professional repair is insubstantially more than DIY alternative, Keyboard Assemblies, Bottom Case, Top Case, Trackpad, Airport/Bluetooth Card, Air Pan, Left Speaker, Right Speaker, etc.
Find iFix Korea near Namsan Bus Terminal. The closest bus stop,여성가족회관, is twenty paces from the second-floor storefront, serving buses 108, 113, 212, 214, 170 and 98. If you are unsure on bus routes, the easiest way is to change at the Euna Apartments bus stop in Sangnam-dong. Here is a daum map and the address for ifix is 경상남도 창원시 성산구 가음동 39-22번지.
iFix Korea’s website is at www.i-phoneas.com (?) while the Changwon store’s number is 055-275-2119.
