Grey dead pixel lines on iPod Touch screen

A year and a half into my first apple product, the iPod touch 2G, and I was hit with a screen defect that happens to surface after just the product warranty expired. *thumbs up to Apple product quality*

So what exactly is the problem? The screen develops a number of permanently grey pixels, so that no matter what colour those pixels needed to display, they’ll always show up as grey.

No, it’s not a cracked screen – the glass touch input panel is fine. The LCD is not cracked, it’s just dead pixels. What’s worse is that those dead pixels are somewhat contagious. Those grey lines would extend until it reaches the edge of the screen, killing off more and more pixels in due time.

Now if you’re unfortunate enough to have this same product defect as I did, the obvious question is, "How can we fix it?" I asked the Apple store, and they were willing to fix it for me – for about AUD $200. Well why might I want to get Apple to fix it for me at that price, when I could almost get a brand new iPod Touch?

There are sites out there that claims to fix iPhone dead pixels, but it certainly won’t fix this particular problem. You see, it’s a physical degradation, which can be seen under bright sunlight, even when the device is powered off.

If I’m not willing to pay 4/5 of the price of a new one to fix an old iPod Touch, what are my options? Throw it away? Nope. Here’s my plan. use it with the defect until it becomes annoying enough. Then, I’ll buy a replacement screen on eBay for about $AUD 15 (with free shipping) and fix it myself. Hah – take that, consumerism!