When a phone screen breaks, you have one of two repair situations. They look identical from the outside, and they cost very different amounts. Knowing which you have before you walk in saves time and helps you spot a shop that's misquoting.
What "the screen" actually is
Three layers, top to bottom:
- Cover glass — the smooth surface you touch. Pure glass, hardened (Gorilla Glass on most modern phones, Ceramic Shield on iPhone 12+).
- OLED or LCD panel — the part that actually emits light to make the picture. Microscopically delicate; this is the expensive part.
- Digitizer — the thing that registers your touches. On modern phones it's a transparent grid embedded in the panel, not a separate layer.
Modern phones (2018+) laminate all three together at the factory so they look like one solid piece. From the outside you can't see the layers; from the inside they're a single sealed assembly.
Glass-only repair — when it's possible
If only the cover glass is cracked — the panel underneath still displays everything correctly, touch still registers — a glass-only repair is theoretically possible.
In practice, it's only viable on older devices: roughly pre-2018, where the layers weren't fully laminated. On a 2022+ iPhone, Galaxy, or Pixel, separating the cover glass from the panel without damaging the panel is essentially impossible. The panel is glued to the glass with an optical adhesive that's stronger than the panel itself.
Anyone offering a $79 "glass-only" repair on a 2022+ flagship is either being misleading or planning to break the panel during the attempt and hope you don't notice. We don't do glass-only on modern devices, and we'll tell you why.
Full-display repair — what every reputable shop is actually doing
For 2018+ phones, if the cover glass is broken, the panel underneath is broken too. The repair replaces all three layers as one assembly. This is the only honest option on a modern device.
The cost difference between phones is the panel itself. An iPhone 15 Pro Max OLED costs more than a Galaxy S23 OLED, which costs more than a Pixel 8 LCD. Labor is roughly the same on all of them — 30 to 60 minutes for most models.
Premium vs OEM (iPhone screens)
For iPhone screens we offer two grades:
- Premium is high-quality aftermarket. Color reproduction is indistinguishable to the eye, touch response matches, True Tone works, brightness is rated to spec. This is our default, and the right call for most customers.
- OEM is a genuine Apple panel. Costs more, sometimes longer turnaround. It matters if you're concerned about resale value (Apple's diagnostic checks for non-OEM screens), or if you can tell the difference on a side-by-side (some people genuinely can on a wallpaper that lights the OLED uniformly).
For Samsung and Pixel we use best-quality aftermarket unless you specifically request OEM. The visual difference is smaller than on iPhones, and the OEM premium is harder to justify.
What the price reflects
When you see a $159 iPhone 13 screen quote vs a $329 iPhone 15 Pro Max quote, almost all of that gap is the panel cost — both repairs take about the same time and use about the same labor.
That's also why "glass-only" pricing is suspicious on modern phones. If a shop quotes $79 to fix a 15 Pro Max screen, they're either using a counterfeit panel, breaking the original and not telling you, or quoting a job they don't intend to actually complete.
When it's worth bringing in
A cracked screen doesn't get cheaper to fix by waiting. Each day with a broken digitizer raises the chance of a fall that damages the back glass, the frame, or the camera too — turning a single repair into a multi-part one.
Walk-ins are welcome at both locations; most screen repairs are 30 to 60 minutes while you wait. Every screen repair is backed by our 90-day warranty on the new panel and the labor.