Mac laptops forum: What would be the approx. cost to install a new screen?

Why would you think Apple manufactured their own displays? Most of them come from LG, some Samsung (which is annoying, since they have a different LVDS cable), which isn't exactly a secret. And of course a big chunk of what you're paying for with buying from Apple is the 90 day warranty on the repair. They have to figure a certain percentage will fail within that period (same as after market displays), and they will have to replace those, so everything is priced accordingly to allow for them to still make a profit overall.

If you check my first paragraph you will note that I said that Apple did NOT manufacture their own screens, which we learned as we did our homework. But we couldn't understand why they wanted about $500 for a $100 screen that we knew was not an Apple product. That $400 difference is a lot to pay for warranty. Glad we did it ourselves. And the screen we installed lasted longer than the original.

No, I saw that, and I was then, and am still now, wondering why you would think Apple was manufacturing these things. The only way you could "find out" this information is if you were under the impression Apple was the one manufacturing them in the first place. This has NEVER been the case in the entire history of Apple. You have any idea how much it costs to build a fabrication facility for building the chips needed in a computer? Even in 1970s dollars, when Apple was founded, we'd be talking at least tens of millions. Today it's easily hundreds of millions to even billions. Some little rinky dink startup isn't going to have access to that kind of capital. Never mind being able to pay the people with the necessary skills to produce the chips.

Anyway, I would also expect that the price you were quoted included the labor to install it, which is quite a bit of work on the older MacBooks as you may have noticed. Whole load of opportunities to damage something in the process if you don't know what you're doing. Risk you're assuming if you do it yourself, but if things go pear shaped when someone ELSE is doing it, they're on the hook to fix it on their dime.

In any case, it's a false conclusion without knowing what actually caused the original to fail, to say that there was something inherently better about the third party one. Simple fact is, most things follow your basic bell curve. Some will fail early, most fail within a certain time frame, and then there are a few that just seem to last forever.