Fixing my cracked Macbook Screen Bezel for under £15
I messed up really bad…long story short I was closing my MacBook Pro after a day's work and *crack* there goes the bezel, fortunately, the screen was perfectly fine it was purely cosmetic.
That didn’t stop me from wanting to get it fixed especially because I had hoped to sell the otherwise immaculate MacBook once a new Apple silicon-based MacBook pro arrives hopefully later this year.
I already knew this was going to be an expensive repair. Going to a third-party repair store the quote I got was £600, unfortunately, there weren’t a lot of options around the area I live.
To humour myself and slightly hope I got get lucky with a cheaper deal I booked a genius bar appointment at Apple, as expected the cost of the repair was around £550 although cheaper for a tiny crack it was extreme.
Why so high both Apple and the third-party store I went to replace the whole screen, not just the bezel.
Fixing it myself
Doing some quick googling I found a couple of videos that show people taking the bezel off and replacing the strip itself (as seen below) this gave me to hope of just doing it myself.
I decided to take the risk and give it a shot myself, based on a few comments I read a hairdryer works just as well so I wouldn’t need to purchase any equipment.
Searching eBay for “MacBook Pro 2017 Bezel” came back with hundreds of results for the bezel strip most of which cost less than £13. After making sure the model number matched up with the number on the listing (A1706) which can be found on the bottom of the MacBook I purchased one.
Step 1 Removing the cracked bezel
Probably the only stressful part of the process is removing the existing bezel. It is recommended to use heat to soften the adhesive that attaches the bezel. It is important to not put too much heat as this could damage the screen.
The video above shows the user using a thin blade however as most people have mentioned in the comments of the video it is highly recommended to use some sort of paper/plastic instead as there are incredibly thin cables below.
However, I got very lucky and instead of using heat I just used a pair of tweezers used for electronic repair and slowly and carefully picked on the glass around the crack, and slowly but surely one side completely came off. Once one half came off, I ran my nail down the top of the other side and the whole piece came off in one clean part. No heat needed 🎉
The adhesive itself is only on the top of the bezel it is 4mm wide so it is fairly easy to remove.
The part I purchased was practically identical however the text is slightly off, this isn’t noticeable at all after applying only when next to the original.
As I had isopropyl alcohol around I decided to carefully clean the area to ensure all adhesive was removed, you could also just scrape off any existing adhesive. Be sure to remove any small fragments of glass that may have fallen I used a can of air.
Most pros would probably remove the screen from the laptop first, however, my repair skills weren’t that advanced but I can imagine that would make it a lot easier to remove the bezel carefully as, as you can see the ribbon cables are incredibly thin.
Also, you should definitely turn off your computer before doing this unlike me, I’m dumb.
Here you can see the adhesive on the new bezel. I was lucky that my bezel came with adhesive already applied but based on my search, not all bezels come with this tape. Mine did not say it was coming with adhesive so this was a surprise.
If your bezel doesn’t come with adhesive it is incredibly easy to purchase your own by simply searching double-sided electronic tape 4mm I measured the adhesive that was on the original Apple bezel and it was 4mm so that's what I would recommend.
As you can see on the image above the tape is only on the top, this was also the case for the cracked Apple one, I assume this is important so it doesn’t interfere with the ribbon cables.
Installation is as easy as removing the protective film from the adhesive and sticking the new bezel on. I used the rubber seal on either end of the screen to align the bezel then using a microfibre cloth I carefully applied pressure to ensure the tape sticks.
And that's it MacBook fixed for less than £15 saving me £585 🎉 And you genuinely can’t tell the difference.
Conclusion
Although this repair is fairly stressful due to the thin cables, if I’m being honest its probably the easiest repair I’ve done I don’t have a lot of experience with electronic repair but I’ve replaced iPhone batteries and screens for people before and this was a lot easier.
The main risk is removing the existing bezel, however the adhesive that is applied isn’t incredibly strong and if yours is already cracked it is fairly easy to just pick off the rest.
The reason the repair is so expensive is because Apple replace the whole screen itself though this is probably just easier, it is fairly wasteful imo
As I knew apple would have to replace the whole screen anyways I decided to take the risk myself thinking worst case scenario I break the screen which would have cost me a ridiculous amount anyways.
Equipment I used
There isn’t a lot of equipment needed in fact I purchase double sided tape from Amazon but cancelled the order afterwards. I also already owned an iFixit kit but the only thing I used from it was the tweezers.
- MacBook Pro Bezel
- Electronic tweezers (Mine were from my ifxit kit)
- Isopropyl alcohol
- Compressed Air
- 4mm double sided electronic tape
