I dropped my phone a month+ ago. The screen cracked and had dead pixels but still worked, as did…read moreFace ID. Eventually, though, the dead pixels spread and it became unusable, though Face ID continued to let me in up until I gave it to CPR to fix.
Over the phone, I was told it would take about an hour. When I got there, it had gone up to 1.5 hours. When I received the phone back, the new screen was no longer flush with the casing, instead, it stood up about .5-1mm.
I opened the wallet and went to pay with the phone, but Face ID just bounced. I figured I might need to redo the process, put my password in, and paid.
At home, the phone struggled to reenable Face ID. There was a sweet spot about 4 inches from my face, but even then it kept exiting to the previous screen.
I called back, the guy told me to drive 20m back to the shop where he explained to me that a piece of the broken glass had likely ruined the Face ID sensor.
His advice was for me to get the insurance plan through T-Mobile, wait a couple of months, then submit a claim. Not sure why insurance fraud was his recommendation, but it was.
I figured I'd just use my password for stuff and eventually try to trade the phone in if it were still worth anything.
Yesterday, I had a freak accident where the screen was cracked again (after going 10+ years without breaking a phone, right?). This time, I took it to Shakeel The Phone Repair Guy. He told me it would take 10 minutes and to come on by.
Within 3 seconds of taking the phone from me, he took one look at it, raised an eyebrow, and asked me who fixed the screen last time. I told him, and mentioned the Face ID.
He removed the broken screen, investigated, and said one second. He went to another room, "Removed the crud and buildup," came back, and installed the new screen.
Face ID worked. He said he suspected that while removing the first screen, the previous technician had likely nudged the Face ID sensor downward with the razor blade, causing it to barely see through its opening.
Shakeel was $10 less, humorous, did almost all of the work in front of me in minutes, fixed an additional issue, and was an absolute pleasure.
I don't know how common my experience with CPR is, but going forward, if I have another accident (oh please make it stop), I'm going back to Shakeel.
TLDR:
CPR caused an issue during screen replacement and then recommended insurance fraud over trying to resolve it themselves. Choose your own adventure.