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RapidRepair White Conversion Kit for iPhone 4 and repair service review
Jason Tsay
In the modern world where the white iPhone 4 and 4S are ubiquitous, the lighter colored phone is no longer the highly sought after mythical beast it once was. However, the white iPhone 4 did not launch until several months after the initial announcement. Companies like RapidRepair offer white conversion kits for early adopters who wish to thoroughly change the color of their iPhone (all ports and glass). Today, we’ll be taking a look at RapidRepair’s service, repair, and parts quality. Is their White Conversion kit just as good as the official white iPhone?
Features
- This kit comes with: white LCD/digitizer combo, white dock, white headphone jack, white back panel and white home button.
- The screen and glass are manufactured as one part and cannot be separated.
- These parts have a high degree of difficulty to install.
- We will keep your black parts after install.
- These are high quality aftermarket parts to convert your iPhone 4 to white
Our Impressions
Ordering Process
First of all, let’s talk about the ordering process. If you choose to install the White Conversion kit yourself, simply purchase the kit from the website and wait for it to arrive. If you want a RapidRepair technician to assemble your iPhone, you place an order with the RapidRepair assembly selected, and send in your iPhone to the specified address. If you have any special requests or notes, make sure to enter them on the ordering screen. No, RapidRepair doesn’t provide inbound shipping labels at the moment, which isn’t all that big of a deal but certainly doesn’t expedite the process as other companies do. Once they receive your device, they’ll send you an email with the estimated wait time for your repair. Once the repair is completed, they’ll send you another email with a tracking number (UPS Ground in our case). It would have been nice if RapidRepair had provided a more personalized process after they receieved and repaired the phone, perhaps giving notifications regarding the status of the device. Competing repair services do offer said personalized repair processes and while not everyone may want this, we see it as a plus.
Turnaround Time
If you’re wondering how long it’ll take for you to get your iPhone back, here’s the chronology for our repair. On 4/23, we shipped out our iPhone from California via USPS and it arrived on 4/25. On 4/26, RapidRepair notified us that it had shipped out from Michigan via UPS Ground and provided a tracking number which estimated a 5/2 arrival back in California. The turnaround time was pretty bad - even though RapidRepair completed the conversion and mailed out my phone in a day, UPS took an entire week to deliver the package. Using a first generation iPhone as a temporary phone for over a week is most unpleasant, as you can imagine. RapidRepair’s FAQ claims that devices typically return within 2-5 days in the US and would take 7-14 internationally.
Repair Service
Nine days after I sent out my iPhone, it came back in a bubble wrapped UPS bag. Inside were two individually bubble wrapped packages - the iPhone and the original black parts. On the White Conversion Kit product page, RapidRepair notes that it keeps the original black parts from your iPhone. We received ours back because we particularly specified that we wanted the parts for comparison. RapidRepair states that you can ask for original parts back but that may result in an added cost to you.
RapidRepair returned the phone exactly as I left it - restored on a iOS 5.1 custom firmware. By browsing the multitasking tray, I found that they had tested the camera and phone to ensure everything was functioning properly. However, the proximity sensor and ambient light sensor ceased to function as intended. The ambient light sensor was much more sensitive prior to the conversion. At one point, we held our iPhone directly up to a light but the brightness remained dim despite default settings with automatic brightness turned on.
White Conversion Kit
Let’s talk about the quality of the parts. The White Conversion Kit includes the front glass (plus LCD), back glass, dock connector, and headphone jack. For the most part, the RapidRepair aftermarket parts are pretty good. But since they’re not originals from Apple, there were some differences.
First of all, the shade of white is not exactly correct and tends to be a bit “gray-er” and more translucent than the white of original part. It’s not something you’ll notice right away until you compare it with a white iPhone but once you do compare them, you’ll realize that they’re quite different. It’s not something we’re troubled by on a daily basis but it’s significant to note if you’re OCD about the exact shade of white your iPhone glass comes in (if you want a closer look at the difference, it shows up pretty clearly in the camera lens closeup photo below).
Another minor difference we discovered was that the paint around the screen seemed to be slightly thinner, allowing a sliver of the LCD’s edge to bleed through. An oleophobic coating does not seem to be present so if you’ve got oily hands you’re going to have to get some sort of film to prevent your iPhone from becoming disgusting within a few minutes of usage. Otherwise, the screen seems to be of the same Retina Display quality and responsiveness.
Our particular display has a minor defect on the left side of the LCD - a tiny bubble (which we presume is between the glass and the LCD). It probably isn’t something that will be on every replacement display but it is a quality control issue to keep an eye out for.
The home button is also not exactly the same - if you look at it from an angle, you’ll see that the surface doesn’t have same curvature and smoothness of Apple’s home button (it’s a little less curvy). In addition, our home button had a little lumpy imperfection near the edge.
As with most aftermarket parts, the plastic border of the front and back are not perfectly cut and have a bit of plastic trimming on the edge. The texture of the plastic is also not the same as Apple’s part, as we found with iPhone4Parts’ white back. More important than the texture is the thickness of the border and we found this microscopic difference in edge elevation to cause slight incompatibilites with certain cases. Whereas the Incipio Edge slid right on prior to the conversion, it took a great deal of effort to pry the case off after our iPhone turned white. So if you use any tight fitting slider cases, beware of the RapidRepair part.
Moving on to the back of the phone, you’ll find that the camera flash diffuser is present and functional. There was some strange warping on the edges of the camera lens although as far as we can tell, it doesn’t affect camera quality a whole lot. There is also no UV filter coating on the lens.
All text and logos are accurate, in the correct size, font, and location.
We also didn’t have any issues with the converted 30 pin dock connector and headphone jack, although it did seem as if the dock connector were a bit tighter.
Warranty
RapidRepair repairs come with a 90 day warranty on parts and labor, 30 days if you installed the parts yourself.
Overall
All in all, we’d say RapidRepair offers a pretty solid service. The turnaround time using UPS Ground is painfully slow, the service could be a little more personalized, and there are some issues with part quality but RapidRepair definitely gets the job done. If you plan on buying their replacement parts to install yourself, just make note of the differences we noted in our review. If you don’t care much about some minor differences, then you’ll definitely be fine.
Pro’s
- high quality display
- accurate logos/print
- professional repair
Con’s
- quality control issues, shade of white is incorrect
- slightly reduced image quality
- slow turnaround time
Where to buy
RapidRepair — MSRP: $149.99
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