Would an $80 Transparent Screen Work on an iPhone 8???
A replacement screen usually makes a phone look the way it did before. This one promises to give an iPhone 8 a rather different look.
We found a pre-modified transparent screen from AliExpress. The painted borders have been cleared away, leaving the areas above and below the display see-through. We bought one to find out how that would look on the phone.
It arrives with the modification already done. But there’s a fairly large price attached to that missing paint.
The $80 Part
We paid $80 for this one. The regular replacement screens we were comparing it with were around $10. That makes the transparent version roughly eight times the price.
| Screen | Price |
|---|---|
| Regular replacement: approximate comparison price | About $10 |
| Pre-modified transparent screen: our purchase | $80 |
That’s a pretty big markup for what amounts to removing paint. So what does the extra money actually get you?
A Closer Look at the Mod
The clear sections are around the earpiece and home button. The rectangular display in the middle stays opaque, so this isn’t a screen you can see through while looking at a photo or an app.
Up close, the work is neatly done. The clear areas have clean edges, rather than the rough finish you might expect from scraped paint. Still, looking at a loose screen only tells you so much.
Putting It on the Phone
The next step was to fit it to the iPhone 8. With the panel going back into place, those clear borders would sit over the phone’s hardware.
With the screen fitted and the display lit up, here’s the result.
Now you can see the hardware around the home button and earpiece while the display sits between them. Those two clear borders make a surprisingly big difference to the front of the phone.
Final Thoughts
It looks pretty cool. The modification is clean, and seeing it installed makes us wish we could try the same idea on a newer iPhone. The price is harder to like: $80 is a lot beside a roughly $10 regular replacement. This is a mod you buy for the look, and you’re paying quite a premium for it.
See you in the next article!
