Part brands and quality ratings

Why we show the brand

Apple does not sell its parts for resale. So unless you buy a new part from Apple itself, a part is not new from Apple, whatever the seller says. Many sellers are vague about where their parts come from. We tell you.

Each product page has a brand badge with three facts:

• the brand of the part;
• our rating of that brand, out of three stars;
• whether the brand makes parts for Apple (an OEM, or original equipment manufacturer).

OEM parts with a maker’s brand

Apple has many of its parts made by other companies, and those parts often carry the maker’s brand on the outside. We can check that such a part is the same as the one Apple put in its computers. These parts rate three stars.

OEM parts with no brand, or Apple’s

A part with no brand, or only Apple’s, was still made for Apple by another company. It is harder to trace which one, and Apple often uses several makers for the same part.

The only sure source of original Apple parts, other than Apple, is used Apple computers. That is where our used Apple parts come from, and we do all of the work ourselves. See How we test parts.

Beetstech-branded parts

Most new replacement parts on the market come from makers with no name, and many of them look almost the same. We test these parts, use them in our own repairs, and sell the good ones under our name, with one of two ratings:

• Beetstech Gold (three stars): equal to the original part.
• Beetstech Silver (two stars): not as good as the original, but the best version we can find. If the same part is also offered in used condition, choose the used part.

We would rather sell only parts as good as the original. But sometimes no part on the market performs that well, and we carry a Silver part instead of none. We do not sell parts of lower quality than Silver.