iPad Pro 13-inch (M5) Repairs in Haverhill

The price, and an honest word before you commit

Before the numbers, the thing that matters more. On a 13-inch Pro a screen can cost near what the tablet is worth second-hand, so this is a stop-or-go decision rather than routine work. The screen is £1,109 and the battery £390, VAT included, after a free diagnostic and under a 12-month warranty. Apple quotes £1,109 too, before VAT, so its figure is nearer £1,331.

We would rather say this at the top than bury it. On a 13-inch Pro a screen replacement can approach or exceed what the tablet is worth second-hand. That is a stop-or-go decision, not a routine job, and you get the numbers before anyone opens anything.

Four different screens fit this iPad, and only one of them is yours

Apple builds this display in four variants: Wi-Fi and cellular, each in standard glass or nano-texture. Four separate part numbers, none substituting for another. Nano-texture is only ever fitted to 1TB and 2TB configurations, and is never an upgrade we can quietly apply to a standard-glass device.

So we ask two questions before ordering, not one: your A-number (A3360 Wi-Fi, A3361 cellular, A3362 mainland China) and whether the screen has the matte nano-texture finish.

Nano-texture is beautiful and it scratches

If you have the nano-texture screen, this is the single most useful thing on this page. Independent durability testing put nano-texture glass at Mohs level 3 for visible marking and level 4 for permanent damage, against level 6 for Apple's standard glass. The etched surface wears rather than resists.

It also cannot be polished like ordinary glass. Apple's instruction is the supplied cloth, optionally moistened with 70% isopropyl alcohol, and nothing else. A scratched nano-texture panel is not something we can buff out: it is a full display replacement, at the dearer of the four part numbers.

Apple opens this one twice, on a fifteen minute clock

Worth knowing what you are paying for. Apple's own procedure for the 13-inch heats the tablet in a model-specific pocket, then instructs the technician to release the clamps, rotate the iPad 180 degrees, re-seat it and cut the rest of the perimeter. The 11-inch has no such step.

The heated fixture runs a countdown and switches itself off after fifteen minutes. All the cutting must finish inside that window, to a maximum depth of 3.5 mm in a chassis 5.1 mm thick, with the TrueDepth camera and ambient light sensors taped off. That is why a bigger Pro is not simply a bigger version of the same repair.

A third-party screen does not kill Face ID

Plenty of pages claim it does. Apple's documentation says otherwise. On an iPad Pro the display genuinely is a tracked, serialised part, unlike any iPad Air where only Touch ID is tracked. But Face ID is bound to the TrueDepth camera, a separate serialised part that stays with the chassis during a screen swap.

Apple grades the two differently in its own manuals. After a display it is "recommended" to run Repair Assistant. After a TrueDepth camera it is "required to enable security features". Face ID does not appear anywhere in Apple's list of what a non-genuine display can affect.

What that list does include is worth knowing: missed or mislocated touches, accidental palm and edge touches registering, Apple Pencil accuracy degrading, True Tone not working, ambient light sensing lost or degraded, incorrect colour calibration, uneven brightness, lower maximum brightness and unintended battery drain. Apple also states the resulting messages "won't affect your ability to use your iPad".

Two things people bring in that are not faults

If your M5 has developed a grainy-looking screen, check whether it has a matte or paper-feel screen protector on it. On this generation every graininess report we can find traces back to a protector rather than the panel. Take it off before you book anything.

And a blank or black screen is not automatically a display failure. Apple's own troubleshooting sends it to power and charging first, and warns that replacing a part may not resolve the problem. The free diagnostic exists precisely so you do not buy a £1,109 screen for a charging fault.

The battery is a screen job first

A battery replacement is £390 including VAT. The cell is 38.99 watt-hours, and reaching it means lifting that bonded panel, because the display is the only way into this iPad. Once it is off, the battery does come out without dismantling the logic board, which is a genuine improvement over older iPads, and it is held by ten stretch-release adhesive strips, five per cell.

Over towards Great Dunmow

One shop, in Haverhill, and no branches. If you are down at Great Dunmow, on the old Roman line of Stane Street with its timber-framed high street, post the iPad in or take the free local collection instead of carrying something this expensive around.