Smartphone screen replacement

Wildcat

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Well, this is something I'll never do again. :D

Last year while out visiting the Great Salt Lake, my daughter dropped her Pixel phone and as luck would have it, it landed face down on the tip of a protruding rock, and left a crack way off in the corner. She used it for a few more months, then there was some deal through Verizon and she got a new one at "no cost" (yeah, I know...subsidizing and all that).

She was going to sell it on Decluttr but the price was so low that I paid her a few dollars more. I decided I would keep it and fix it to use as a second phone with a data SIM*, as I could stash it in my center console and use it to power Android Auto in the car, or carry it on the bike since it fits into the under-seat bag much easier. I have a Pixel XL currently, so this is like having its little brother.

Normally the glass, digitizer and screen are sold as a unit, for anywhere from $75 and up. The kit I bought came with a couple of tools to help take things apart. I could have bought the glass only.

With the Pixel (and I imagine most phones today), it's a matter of getting adhesive to release so the parts can be separated. Supposedly, heating it with a hair dryer or heat gun will soften the adhesive enough to get the phone to separate. That is where I had my biggest problem. I used a hair dryer vs. a heat gun, as I felt the heat gun would get way too hot. It took me a while, and I had to find a razor blade to get in there and start prying the glass out--it was the only thing slim enough to work between the bezel and the glass without damaging anything.

Even once I got it started, I then had to get the tip of a wider tool in there to really work it loose (they provided a triangular plastic tool with tips on it that were thinner than a credit card). Of course when I got to the bad section of the glass, it pretty much began flaking off vs. coming out as a single piece. I finally got most of it out of there, not without a lot of twisting and turning to get it to release.

So I'm glad I did not buy just the glass--as some have said elsewhere, you often destroy the LCD screen and digitizer when trying to get the glass out. And even if you do, it is still difficult to separate the glass from the digitizer/LCD without damaging it.

After cleaning out the old adhesive (which itself was tricky), it went well. The new screen came with an adhesive sheet that took me a while to figure out. But it's back together and working properly. I put a tempered glass screen protector on it. (Preferred the old plastic film type but couldn't find any that I liked.) So far, the quality of the display seems to be as good as the original.

So, would I do it again? Highly unlikely. My eyesight isn't what it used to be, and neither is my dexterity or patience with working on small things like this. ;)

* On Project Fi, I can add a data SIM to an account for no charge beyond the data it uses. I could actually get a second phone line for $15/month, but really have no need for it. The only thing is, a second phone line would give me the full Project Fi connectivity (T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular) vs. T-Mo only for data. (For those not familiar, phones compatible with Project Fi use additional radios, and can hop from one carrier to the other seamlessly depending on which one has the best signal in a given location. It will, however, always give top preference to high quality open WiFi connections which is automatically ports through its own VPN for security.) Just for that reason alone, I thought of adding the 2nd line since I'll be heading west tomorrow and it could come in handy having both phones fully connected. Since it has no contract or commitment, I can simply cancel the line when I no longer need it.
 
I would imagine it would have taken a lot less patience with a heat gun instead of a hair drier. How long did it take you? I've heard between one and two hours at a place.
 
I think it was just over an hour. The hair dryer certainly got it hot, but I didn't know if it could take too much more heat. It cooled down really fast though.

It's been in the car for a week now doing navigation duties (attached to the head unit) and has worked fine. Screen still looks as good as the original to me.
 
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