[sjwright]

I get irritated every time Louis and others bang on about those damn "refurbished" iPhone screen assemblies. Refurbished is a term that is frequently used to describe a used product that has been returned to near-new condition by replacing worn or faulty components with genuine parts or parts of equal specification.

These screen assemblies are NOT refurbished, they are not of equal or comparable specification. The replacement glass used on these refurbished assemblies is cheap fragile junk, not Gorilla glass or a comparable substitute. It's a greatly inferior product, so describing these assemblies as refurbished is at minimum misleading; personally I'd call it a scam.

If someone sold you an entire iPhone as "refurbished" where it's mostly genuine but an essential component was replaced with a third-rate fake—let's say the motherboard is a cheap Android equivalent running Android with an iPhone theme—everyone would agree that was a scam. The only difference between a fake motherboard and fake glass is most consumers will be unaware they've been scammed... until it breaks. (And even then, most consumers will just consider it bad luck and blame themselves.)

I know multiple people who have had their cracked iPhones independently repaired only to have the screen break again after a matter of days or weeks, under the most innocuous of circumstances. We are being scammed, and Louis Rossman defends the scammers.

[baldfat]

Your misusing terms. You are using the term refurbished but you really mean remanufactured.

Remanufacturing is the rebuilding of a product to specifications of the original manufactured product using a combination of reused, repaired and new parts. It requires the repair or replacement of worn out or obsolete components and modules.

Remanufacturing is a form of a product recovery process that differs from other recovery processes in its completeness: a remanufactured part should match the same customer expectation as new machines.

[sjwright]

You might be right from an industry wonk's perspective, but what matters is consumer expectation.

For example: Apple themselves uses the term refurbished to describe an iPhone that—but for the packaging—appears identical to a brand new item as far as any regular consumer could tell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refurbishment_(electronics)

[sjwright]

Actually if Wikipedia is anything to go by, the term remanufacturing doesn't apply here.

The term "remanufacture", however, is a distinct term used for products that are returned to the identical-to-new condition in industrial closed-loop processes, and which often possess the same warranties and guarantees as a new product.

I am definitely not talking about remanufacturing.

[baldfat]

Well what term are you using for a repair? If your using parts that are not under warranties nor is it the same as it was when it was manufactured?

When I buy parts off of ebay I don't expect them to be the same, no matter what the label is on the part. Just like buying "OEM" batteries on Amazon. You better know you have close to zero chance of having the same battery as you bought before.

[sjwright]

I'm not the one defending the use of the term refurbished. The fake-glass chop shops are the ones who are using it, and I think they should stop doing so.