West LA's repair shop since before there was one on every corner.

How a repair actually begins

How ubrokeit figures out what your device actually needs

Most shops start with a tool. ubrokeit starts with a conversation. Here's Gregory on how a repair actually begins:

I've been fixing devices in West LA for fifteen years, since before there was a shop on every corner. Thousands of repairs. And the most useful thing all that buys you happens before I ever pick up a tool.

The first thing I do is talk to you. Half the time I can tell what happened from the crack pattern alone. Then I listen to the exact words, because the repair you walked in asking for isn't always the repair you need.

The charging port. Someone says, "I need a new charging port." I ask what it's doing. If the answer is "I have to hold the cable at an angle for it to charge," that's almost always lint packed into the port. A quick cleaning, not a replacement. About $125 turns into about $25. Plenty of shops would clean that port in five minutes and bill you for the full replacement anyway. I won't.

The battery hiding behind the port. Someone else comes in just as sure they need a charging port. So I ask the same question: what's it actually doing? This time it's "it charges fine, but the battery's dead by lunch." That's not the port at all. A bad port is a charging problem; draining fast is a battery problem. Two different repairs, and the one they walked in asking for wouldn't have fixed a thing. Without that one question, they'd have paid for a new port and walked out with the same dead phone by 2pm.

The screen that's right for the situation. Not every repair needs a top-tier screen, and I'll tell you when it doesn't. Trading your phone in? The carrier just needs a screen that isn't cracked. A quality LCD does that for a lot less, and paying for OLED would be money wasted. Working with a budget? Same thing: a cheaper screen gets you a working phone today. What I won't do is put one in without telling you what it is. An LCD in a phone that came with OLED will look a little different and draw a bit more power, so if you're keeping the phone long-term, I'll lay out both options and let you pick with the full picture. The screen isn't the decision. Knowing what you're choosing is.

That conversation-first method is the standard every ubrokeit repair is held to, and it's why people leave knowing what they actually needed, not just what they were sold.