The day we went mad « The BEST Apple Hardware and Software Reviews

Written By Ben Gribbin January 15th, 2010

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It’s official, we’ve gone mad!

Our madness started when the first Apple product our Editor owned, an iPhone 3g, was returned to him broken. Recently, it had been donated to his father for use as his own personal phone.

It seems some clever know it all was telling him how to use it when the broke the silent switch internally. Great! Here’s what we plan to do about it though. We are going to bling this iPhone out to be a one of a kind.

As it’s quite special, it seems a waste to just throw away. Then again it’s quite literally crazy to have spent the amount we’ve spent on fixing it. Meh! It has real sentimental value, so it will be repaired regardless of price.

Here’s what we’ve ordered so far:

Silver replacement case (while we’ve got it in bits across the table, we might aswell replace the case as the old one is broken and has a few hairline cracks appearing). This silver replacement will make our iPhone look super bespoke!

Cost: $18.95

Whilst we were disassembling the iPhone, we managed to totally botch the battery up (by accidentally using a metal object to remove it). This left the battery creased and folded. A replacement was ordered from ifixit.com, just to be safe. This may also give us better battery performance too.

Cost: $19.95

While we were on ifixit.com, a few tools and bits we’re ordered, such as a suction cup to help replace the screen. We also purchased 2 plastic ’spudgers’ which gently prise tabs and the like.

Cost: $8.85

We ordered a replacement silent switch, as the old one is mucky and scratched.

This cost: $5

Then we purchased a new silent switch assembly. There was only one site we found on the web stocking these, and they cost: $22

Total: $75.

Yes, we spent $75 on a 2 year old iPhone 3g. So shoot us….

We may have to order an audio jack replacement too, but we’ll wait till everything comes and see what happens. We can’t wait for the whole thing to go back together. Let’s just hope it works

We’ll post pics when we get the iPhone 3GAU (for awesome, U for unique) taped back together again. Would you go to these lengths to fix your first ever Apple product? Of Course you would…..