Pratts Pods And Covid 19 Corona Virus

Here at Pratts Pods we care about our customers and with such difficult times ahead we wanted to update our clients (old and new) on what we are doing and how we are dealing with this global pandemic.

So firstly we hope you and your families are safe and well and that you are also doing your bit to ensure that we can get through this period of uncertainty so we can all get back down the beaches in the hot summer weather.

We are now offering a collection and delivery service for our local customers, stuck in the house? Can’t make it in to town? Get in touch, we are happy to collect

This accounts for ALL of our services, phone, tablet, laptop, TV, games consoles and any other repairs can now be picked up and dropped back to your home for just £9.99
Happy to collect from your designated areas we can also offer this as a no contact service enabling you to carry on using your electronics with peace of mind that they have been repaired to the highest standards.
We will continue to update this article as and when guidance is given by the government to keep our valued customers up to date continuously. Have any questions? Why not click here and get in touch today.

 

Mobile Phones And Our Sleep

There are so many views on the internet about how mobile phones can effect your sleep patterns that it is hard to seperate fact from fiction. We decided to get out there and have a look at what others were saying and try to work out if mobile phones really do affect our sleep and we found some pretty conclusive results.

Since phones were invented back in the late 19th century they have come a very long way and now with the ability to switch on your lights or heating and also being able to look inside your fridge whilst shopping these devices are evolving quickly.

We use our phone for an alarm in the morning, to set up our calendar for the month and so many other things so how doe it affect our sleep?

Why not check out this well thought out article here and let us know your thoughts?

We agree with the article and believe that a phone should be in a different room (you may need to invest in a new alarm clock) so that you can get a great nights sleep and wake up feeling invigorated for the new day ahead.

 

Common Issues With iPhones

iPhones are one of the most popular smart phones available on the market today and with prices over the £500-00 mark for a more recent edition it is no wonder that many people are opting to repair or flush their older devices rather than buying a new one.

iPhones are brought to us on a daily basis and over the years we have learnt about some of the most common problems an iPhone owner may have –

My iPhone turns off with 30% battery left – It may be the battery needs replacing but there can also be other issues that could be causing the problem. Want to find out? We always advice our customers to get a professional to check before parting with money for unnecessary iPhone repairs.

My touchscreen isn’t responding – Maybe your iPhone is writing the wrong letters or even writing things itself. This could be a touch screen problem but also could be your touch IC chip. Again, we advise getting in touch with a professional company that won’t rip you off.

My iPhone won’t charge and iTunes refuses to connect – We suggest trying a good quality USB cable as cheaper variants can cause all sorts of problems. It could also be the charging port itself that needs replacing. Either way make sure you contact a professional to work out what is wrong before paying for something you don’t need.

As Apple experts we know what we can do and will always inspect your device and give you an overview with costs before we will work on it. Are you facing other issues not mentioned above and if so why not get in touch with the experts today.

ipad mini touch issue repair

We recently repaired an ipad mini 2 after a previous repair attempt. The customer had brought it in for intermittent touch freezes and ghosting where the screen will randomly touch itself.

This is very common on the ipad mini and is usually caused by poor quality screens being used. When the ipad mini first came out we found that cheap screens with copper traces on the digitiser would short and have screen ghosting. Unfortunately some companies still use these screens and cut corners with repairs.

This ipad was no different. Unfortunately the previous repairer had used a poor quality screen and also left out all of the shields from inside the device.

Luckily we had a set of spare shields to replace these. We also fit OEM screens on ipad mini’s to ensure that the quality is not affected when repairing unlike most other repair shops. We always do a bend test on our new screens to see how resistant the screens are, if a screen cannot bend without cracking it’s not good enough to fit on our customers devices.

The screen on this ipad was barely stuck down and dust had gotten into the lcd causing dust marks and stains. We use a special glass cleaner on dirty lcd’s to remove as much of the staining as possible. Unfortunately once dust settles and stains an LCD you will never remove them 100%, this is why it is so important to repair ipads properly the first time as to not cause permanent damage to your internal screen. We fit foam tape around the LCD as a second layer of defence from dust, we also use a special adhesive to seal the screen to ensure that the new screen will not lift like they do from other repairers.

We specialise in ipad repairs and fix other bodge jobs on a daily basis. If you want your ipad repaired right the first time please feel free to get in touch.

 

Game console repairs and servicing

Games consoles get a lot of use over time. wether they are being used to play your favourite game for hours on end, chill out and watch a movie or streaming online they get very heavy usage. We often keep them hidden away in cabinets and other dusty places and as the fans spin to cool the consoles down they also suck in a lot of dust too, clogging up the grills and restricting air flow.

Because of this older consoles will often run hot or over heat, this can cause consoles to work much harder than needed to try to cool themselves and can cause lots of problems such as freezing, turning itself off and becoming slow.

Over heating a motherboard can cause it to warp over time and can cause some of the signature failures within a lot of the popular consoles such as Xbox’s and playstations.

At Pratts pods we recommend that you have your consoles serviced every couple of years to clean out the dust and dirt, clean up the CPU/GPU and reapply new thermal paste. On top of this it is good to keep your console in a clean and today environment and hoover the vents regularly.

By cleaning your console regularly and having it serviced you can increase its life span hugely, most failures are caused by overheating and this is very easy to stop.

If you would like to find out more about looking after your console or if you are having a problem with yours then please feel free to get in touch.

iPhone 6 Plus touch disease repair Wokingham Berkshire

One of the very common issues in the iPhone 6 Plus and sometimes the iPhone 6 is touch disease.

Some of the symptoms are:

Unresponsive touch screen.

Grey bars at the top of the screen.

Touch screen freezing.

Having to bend the phone for the touch screen to work.

This fault is caused by poor design and flexion of the motherboard. On the iPhone 6 Plus the housing of the phone is weak and can bend easily, every movement in the housing passes through to the motherboard and over time traces in the motherboard break. In this instance the M1 pad under the touch ic in the phone breaks away from its track and causes touch disease, when the phone is bent in a certain way the connection is restored and this is why the issue can be intermittent.

At Pratts pods we are able to remove the touch ic, run a jumper to repair the broken trace and restore the connection to the M1 pad, then reball the ic and re attach it resolving the issue and restoring touch functionality.

This repair is future proof as the jumper put in place is stronger and less vulnerable than the original trace, meaning further flexion of the motherboard will not cause the connection to break again.

We repair a lot of this fault, along with other common issues such as audio ic repair on the iPhone 7, Tristar replacements for charging issues and baseband repairs for no service or searching faults. Below are some photos of some recent iPhone touch disease repairs.

An App For Everything

Just Musings –

Did you know there is an app to measure things?

An app that can help you get fitter?

An app that will save all your passwords in one convenient place?

An app to turn your heating and lights off at home?

An app to help you with homework?

An app that will enable you to message people completely free just using your data allowance?

In fact there are so many apps now that it is hard to keep track. Want to know more about apps and what they can do for you why not check out your app store and search queries that are relevant to you.

Understanding Your Battery And Getting The Most From It

Here at Pratts Pods we wanted to share our knowledge with you and help you understand how to get the best out of your devices battery.

1 – Batteries these days are rated by how many times you can charge them so believing that charging it overnight will damage the phones battery life is completely wrong.

2 – Turning off bluetooth and wifi will not necessarily help you preserve battery  life because today’s technology ensures that these features only use battery life when they are being used.

3 – The auto brightness function on any device is now clever enough to ensure that your battery is preserved to the best of its ability so by turning it down you won’t necessarily save battery life in fact you may increase your usage from using the function.

4 – Experts within Apple have confirmed that turning all your apps off will not enable you to preserve battery life and in fact by switching them off and the re-starting them you could be using the battery more than you need to.

5 – Using the right battery (that is approved) for your device is definitely the best way forwards. Other cheaper batteries could in fact make your device less responsive and not power the device correctly therefore meaning you need more repairs than necessary.

Want to test the knowledge of an expert? Why not get in touch today by clicking here

Business Maintenance And Support Services

The lifeblood of your business is communication and without phones and laptops your business would probably suffer and possibly lose thousands in the process.

Here at Pratts Pods we help local businesses ensure that they have a repair department that they can trust to turn a repair around quickly so that there is minimal fuss and trouble to your business.

For complete peace of mind we can even offer a maintenance contract where we can regularly test and replace any of the parts that may be a trouble in the not to distant future and all for an affordable monthly cost.

So if you need a repairs company that has the interests of your business at heart why not get in touch with Pratts Pods today by clicking here.

Iphone or Ipad Battery Life

iPhone and iPad battery problems anybody?
Did you know it might not be the battery and could even be software related?
It could even be the power unit you are using to charge the device!
Here at Pratts Pods we offer a free assessment so that one of our technicians can pinpoint the issue and ensure that you don’t pay for unnecessary fixes that you shouldn’t have to.
With years of experience and a fully kitted out and dedicated repair centre we are the ideal choice for local repairs and can normally have it finished within an hour or 2. So why not get in touch with a friendly and professional team today by clicking here.