I just replaced my screen for my iPhone 12 Pro and the new screen is darker, less vibrant, and lower resolution than my original screen. In addition, I am getting an error for the screen, claiming it might not be a genuine Apple product.
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Hi Sheena,
Just to add to my esteemed colleague's excellent information, after the iPhone X, Apple started pairing screens with the logic board. My understanding is that the only detrimental effect of that is to give you that "may not be genuine" warning. In addition, replacing the screen causes you to lose the True Tone function unless a bit of data is copied from the old screen to the replacement.
I get the impression that you didn't do the replacement yourself, but rather had a shop do it for you. Assuming Face ID, True Tone and Automatic Brightness functions are all working, then they did a reasonable job other than the fact that they used an inferior quality screen. Aftermarket shops can get around all of the other issues except the genuine warning unless, as Justin said, they remove a chip from your old screen and transplant it to the replacement.
Outside of that, which requires somewhat specialized equipment and expertise, the only other way to get rid of that warning is to buy the screen from Apple and either have them replace it for you, or make use of the self repair program. You'll pay quite a bit as the screens they sell are expensive plus they charge a fair amount for the repair. With the self repair program you still have to rent their equipment in order to do the job yourself, but then you get access to the configuration tool that lets you pair the new screen to the phone.
Forgot to mention, but yes I agree that your replacement screen is most likely an LCD rather than the newer OLED technology. If that's the case, the replacement will, as you observed, have much lower image quality and resolution, plus it will be slightly thicker than the original because of the need to add a backlight layer. That also means it will use more power than the OLED, resulting in shortened battery life throughout the day. And since the LCD is printed on glass rather than the flexible plastic like the original OLED screen, it can't be curved to match the front glass so it can't extend all the way to the edge of the screen like an OLED.
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I don't know about "esteemed colleague". I still feel like an amateur compared to some of the experts here. 🤣
All good additional data on the differences between OLED/LCD, and I forgot to mention the True Tone function. But according to Sheena they bought an OLED screen from here on iFixit, so I suspect perhaps a mis-shipment got the wrong screen to them. I know I've used iFixit and their OLED screens are an exact match to the quality of OEM.
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That is to be expected.
The vibrancy is due to the screen being an LCD screen versus OLED that original Apple uses. While you can find very cheap LCD screens as cheap as $25 or so ($85 on iFixit with high quality and warranty iPhone 12/12 Pro Screen), an OLED screen will run you a minimum of about $100 for end users, and closer to $150 for higher grade ($145 on iFixit). If you spent less than that, no matter what the seller told you, you got an LCD screen (and possibly lied to if an untrustworthy vendor on Amazon or such).
The "not an Apple product" message is also to be expected. To avoid it, your original screen must be used to either copy the data from the serialized chip, or to microsolder and transfer that chip over to the new phone. This is also detailed on the repair guide featured here on iFixit: iPhone 12 Pro Screen Replacement.
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But the problem is I ordered the OLED screen and I paid almost $200 on iFixit so I’m thinking they sent me the wrong screen
@sheenamitchell A mixup in the warehouse is definitely possible. Either the screen was labelled wrong in the warehouse or the person fulfilling your order grabbed the wrong screen by mistake. We are all humans and we all make them occasionally.
I have used iFixit screens myself and there is a noticable difference in quality between the LCD and OLED screens, so if you ordered OLED from iFixit and it has the image quality of LCD, I do believe that a mixup is the culprit. Their OLED screens, in my experience, match the image quality of OEM. But worry not! Because iFixit has a wonderful customer service team and they can help facilitate an exchange for you and make it right.
The second part, the "not genuine apple part", is going to be there unless you use something like a QianLi iCopy device to copy over the serialized data from your original screen. Typically, buying an $80 device just to fix this one message is not worth it, but perhaps a local shop in your area has one and will let you use it, maybe for a small convenience fee.
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