Genuine, OEM or aftermarket screens: what you are really paying for

Three words get used as if they were a quality scale. They are not. They are supply routes.

Genuine means a panel that left the brand’s own channel — an Apple or Samsung screen, usually salvaged from a donor or bought as a spare. They are scarce. They cost more. True Tone and colour matching are the reason people pay.

Aftermarket means a third-party factory built a display for that model. Soft OLED on a Galaxy looks closer to the original. Hard OLED is cheaper and a bit less flexible. In-cell LCD on older iPhones is the everyday repair. Aftermarket is not a counterfeit logo on a cereal box. It is the panel most independent shops fit, and it is what our from-prices assume.

OEM is the slippery one. In theory it means the same factory that supplies the brand. In practice it is used for anything that is not the cheapest aftermarket. We do not put “OEM” on a job sheet unless we can name the supplier. If we cannot, we call it aftermarket and say what you lose: sometimes True Tone, sometimes a slightly different white point.

Ask three questions: Will Face ID still work? Will the brightness look like the old screen in daylight? What happens if this panel fails in six months? We answer those before the old display comes off. The warranty is 12 months on the part we fitted. A new drop is a new job.

Paying more does not always mean “Apple glass.” It sometimes means a better aftermarket. We will tell you which one is going in. That sentence is the whole point of this page.