Diagnosed, not guessed
Every device is tested before we quote, so you are not paying for a part that was never the problem.
Parts
Why one screen costs twice as much as another
OLED, soft OLED, hard OLED, incell LCD. What the panel types actually are, which one your phone shipped with, and what you lose by going down a tier.
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The panel is most of the price
A screen repair is a part and about half an hour. The half hour is broadly the same on every phone. The part is not, and it is why two quotes for what sounds like the same job can be twice as far apart as you expected.
There are four things on the market and they are genuinely different products, not marketing tiers.
The four panel types
| Type | What it is | What you notice |
|---|---|---|
| Genuine OLED | A manufacturer service part, or a pull from a factory line | Identical to what the phone left the factory with, including colour calibration and peak brightness. Where it exists for your model it is the dearest and the best. |
| Soft OLED | A third party OLED on a flexible substrate | The good aftermarket tier. Very close on colour and brightness, and it flexes the way the original does, which matters for how it survives a knock. |
| Hard OLED | A third party OLED on a rigid glass substrate | Cheaper. It is thicker, more brittle at the edges, and on curved phones it cannot be made to fit properly at all. |
| Incell LCD | An LCD sold as a replacement for an OLED phone | The cheap option. Blacks are grey, the phone is thicker, always-on display stops working properly, and it looks wrong beside any other phone of the same model. |
How to tell what your phone shipped with
Every model page on this site says, in the specification list, whether that phone came with an OLED or an LCD panel. It is worth checking before you accept a quote, because fitting an LCD into a phone that shipped with OLED is the single most common downgrade in the trade and it is not usually disclosed.
The quick physical test: on an OLED, a black background is genuinely black and the screen edge disappears into the bezel in a dark room. On an LCD, black is a very dark grey and the backlight glows faintly at the edges.
What goes wrong with a cheap panel, and when
- Colour drifts. Usually warm or slightly green, and you only see it beside another phone of the same model, which is exactly when it is most annoying.
- Peak brightness never arrives. It looks fine indoors and is unreadable on a bright day on the quays.
- Touch develops a lag you can feel while typing but cannot demonstrate to anybody.
- The adhesive lets go at a corner, usually the bottom, and once one corner lifts it takes dust in behind the panel.
- True Tone or adaptive colour stops working, because the calibration data lives on the original panel and cannot always be moved.
- On a curved phone, a hard OLED never sits flat and the edges show a permanent bright line.
The one thing a cheap screen does not do
It does not fail on the day of the repair, and that is precisely the problem. Every panel on this list works perfectly at the counter, which is why a same-day comparison between two shops tells you nothing about what you are buying.
The honest version is that you are paying for month six, not for day one. That is a harder thing to sell and it is the truth.
What we fit and why
Genuine service parts where the manufacturer sells them for your model. Soft OLED where they do not, because on most phones it is the best part actually obtainable and it is a good one.
We do not fit hard OLED to a curved phone and we do not fit an LCD to a phone that shipped with OLED. There are shops that will and it is cheaper. It is also a phone you will be less happy with in the spring.
Asked all the time
Common questions.
Very close, and honestly so on colour, brightness and touch. Where a genuine service part exists for your model we will offer it and tell you the difference in price. Where it does not, soft OLED is the top of the actual market rather than a compromise.
On a phone that shipped with an LCD, that is simply the right part. On a phone that shipped with OLED, no. It is visibly worse in a way people regret, and we would rather lose the job than fit one.
Usually. The calibration lives on the original panel and it can be transferred with the right tooling on most models. Where it cannot be kept on your device we tell you before we start rather than after.
The panel is harder to make, more fragile to handle and there is no cheap tier that fits properly. That is why an Ultra or a Pro Max screen costs more than the flat model beside it.
A good panel lasts as long as the phone. Our 360-day warranty covers the part and the workmanship, and the failures described on this page, when they happen, happen well inside that.
iMEND is an independent repair service. Brand and model names are used only to describe the devices we repair. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or an authorised service provider for any manufacturer.
Why bring it here
An independent workshop, not a kiosk.
We are a dedicated repair bench in Dublin 3. That means we take on work authorised channels turn away, and we tell you honestly when something is not worth fixing.
Parts that last
Genuine or OEM-grade components chosen for your model. We tell you which is going in before we start.
Your data stays yours
Hardware-only repairs. We never read, copy or move anything on your device.
No fix, no fee
If we cannot repair it, there is nothing to pay. No diagnostic fee, no handling charge.
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