Easily spot fake iPhone LCD screens from OEM, Original Bad Quality LCD

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Your suppliers for iPhone LCD screens are everywhere to be found within the USA and Asia. Broken iPhone repair locations ultimately make their decision based on two main factors: price versus quality.

No matter your decision, it’s very important for all iPhone LCD buyers to know the correct way to identify fake iPhone LCD screens.

As always, the most common way to prevent purchasing fake iPhone screens is to conduct your due-diligence before you buy.

Supplier Advertising: Many LCD suppliers will use catchy phrases and advertising to relate the quality of their parts. These tactics are used to avoid the use of “OEM” or “Original,” instead replacing these with words such as “AAA Quality” or “Grade A+.” More importantly, the suppliers would be violating Apple’s trademark and patent laws by advertising LCDs in this manner.
Fruitless Up-Sell: Suppliers will often attempt to upsell New Original OEM LCD screens by a few bucks to buyers who took the advertising bait. In most cases, you’ll receive the same quality LCD screen that was a bit cheaper. Most buyers won’t catch onto this.

Identifying Fake iPhone Screens:

There are many ways to tell fake iPhone LCD screens from original OEM without having to put each one under a microscope or taking up too much of your time. Many identification methods are out-dated and the factories that manufacture the fake iPhone LCDs are always coming up with new methods to mask known visual inspection methods.

You can identify fake iPhone screens easily with a few simple techniques that will cover 98% of product, no matter how much a supplier tries to replicate the real thing.

Resolution Quality – Cell phone LCD screen resolutions are being manufactured with higher resolutions in a rapid way. Cutting corners on resolution quality is the number one way for factories to reduce costs. Being that most new models have retina or HD quality DPI, you should be able to easily identify a fake iPhone screen from the original. Make sure you have a known, real, original LCD to compare with and download a high resolution photo for testing comparison.

Fake iPhone LCD High Copy Resolution

Flex Cable Markings: The second most common way to identify a fake iPhone LCD is through markings on the digitizer and LCD flex cables. The main one I look at is just the digitizer flex because it wouldn’t make sense for anyone to manufacture a fake LCD with an original digitizer. That would be like putting V8 engine in a VW Beetle. Additionally, Apple does work with customs officials in various countries to size fake poor quality refurbish screens. It’s a way that custom agents can spot fake iPhone parts without Apple having to provide a field manual that’s difficult to enforce.

V on Digitizer Flex	V on LCD Flex	Digitizer/LCD Condition Grade
Yes	Yes	Original Digitizer and LCD
No	Yes	Original LCD but fake Digitizer
Yes	No	V8 Engine on the Beetle/Foolish Factory
No	No	True fake iPhone LCD screen.

The chart above can be used for iPod, iPad and iPhone 2G, 3G, 3GS, 4 and 4s LCD screens. I haven’t confirmed this for the iPhone 5 yet, but I will update this article shortly with my findings.

You should also be aware that if you see the flex cable’s white lettering marked over with a black sharpie and it has a “V,” it’s most likely a refurbished original part. The factories will mark over this again to avoid scrutiny with customs.

3. LCD Flex Cable IC Chip – There is a chip on the LCD flex cable that regulates power and display information from the main board to the LCD itself.

iPhone LCD IC Chip on Flex Cable

You’ll know you have a fake iPhone LCD (or at best poor quality refurbished original) if the upside-down triangle is missing from the IC chip. One would think the copy factories would enjoy reducing their cost by removing a chunk of raw material on this cover, but they don’t. I would assume it’s more costly to cut out the triangle design on the cover than to save the material cost.

Tips and Recommendations for Identifying Fake or Original iPhone LCDs:

Ask your suppliers directly if the product is “Genuine, original Apple digitizer and flex cable.” If their response still leaves questions, ask them to add a guarantee on your invoice. I’ve never had an LCD supplier willing to write that on an invoice no matter what wording tactics they use.
Purchase small samples from various suppliers to check consistency and quality.
Check every order upon receipt, no matter how long you’ve been dealing with the company.
Board testing samples upon receipt can be time-consuming, but it pays off in the long run.
Scrutinize samples, current orders and future orders. Provide suppliers with this information if a future order is to be made.
Return defective and misrepresented product. RMAs to China or the USA can be easy to neglect. Ensuring that your supplier knows you’re going to return items will better your chances that they screen your product more closely before shipping next time.
Have supplier confirm their RMA policy and include it on their invoice.
A legitimate supplier will provide references in your country and location.
Be wary of suppliers offering both new and all original LCD screens at a bargain price. You’ll probably be buying a refurbished original.

The truth is: not so many fake iPhone LCD screens are on the market these days. There are so many broken LCD screens being reclaimed that it costs less to refurbish a used cracked iPhone screen than it does to manufacture a new fake iPhone screen. No matter what the LCD model, the trends to spot fake iPhone parts tends to stay the same. LCD screens are becoming larger and smarter, and it shows in the more expensive parts costs for models such as the iPhone 5, Note II, etc. Neglecting to keep your suppliers product in check is a recipe for being taken advantage of and wasting money. By knowing how to spot fake parts, it will ensure you’re staying competitive in the cell phone repair business.