Left: iPod Touch (1G), 30€, eBay. Seller said it switches off by itself all the time. Opened it up, cleaned it, new battery, removed lock button. Working fine so far, needs to get a new lock button ribbon cable, though. Back cover is also slightly damaged (hence the silicone cover). It actually looks a bit better than on the snapshot above because this stupid silicone cover doesn’t fit 100% on this 1G model.
Right: iPhone (2G), 70€, eBay, broken screen. Opened it up, found even more damage done by the previous owner (…). Water damage. Cleaned all parts, pcb looked fine. Installed new screen, new battery, reassembled everything, booted it up, jailbroke it, now working just fine. Camera module has an issue though, needs to be replaced (there are marks on the lenses which just won’t come off).It’s my first iPhone experience. I did this experiment of buying broken iPhones because:
- I wanted to know if I can fix them
- Broken OR (!) used iPhones often sell for above 100 €. Also, you’ll hardly ever find an iPod this cheap on eBay. I could still sell them for the price of a new Nokia phone (which I think is crazy and the best reason for buying iPhones these days).
- I am fed up with my Nokia E72 and its ailing firmware. Time for a change, time for some apps.
- I wanted to have some kind of tablet computer I can use at home (=> iPod) to quickly check out stuff online and as a multimedia player to stream music via last.fm and from my NAS (ok, my E72 is also capable of doing that).
(this post written on the E72)