Brad Sheasby's Blog

So I broke my iPhone. I am (was) one of the delusional few that believed that I did not need any protective cover for my phone since I am sooo careful. Well, apparently that doesn’t really matter – even careful people are susceptible to the simultaneous convergence of moments of idiocy and clumsiness. Hence, a broken screen. So anyway, I did some research and discovered that I could fix it myself and save a bunch of money. I’m in. I’ll void my warranty, but that seems slightly superfluous since to retain my warranty I would have to pay essentially the cost of a new phone. I’ll wait and do that if my phone subsequently spontaneously combusts down the road. Anyway, a few folks have asked how I did it, so I figured I’d blog the parts/links I used to do it. Keep in mind that this will void your warranty and you have the potential ability to completely brick your phone if you have an aforementioned confluence of idiocy and clumsiness while it’s in pieces. Consider yourself warned. For starters, I initially only had a broken digitizer (glass screen), but ended up breaking the LCD screen while changing the front glass. I’ll explain how/why below. Also note that I have a 3G (not 3Gs), so the parts below are for the 3G – you’ll need different parts based on which phone you have.

So here’s the digitizer/glass screen:

Digitizer on Amazon.com

Here’s the LCD:

LCD on Amazon.com

Both parts are as good as the OEM parts once installed as far as I can tell. In fact, the LCD might even look better (deeper blacks/colors). Note that you will only need the LCD if yours is damaged, otherwise you will only need the digitizer (screen).

Below is the video I followed to make the repairs. There are many others on YouTube and maybe even some better, but this is the one I found and it worked for me. A few comments on it:

1. Use a small suction cup to remove the the screen assembly after removing the sim card and the 2 screws at the bottom. Prying the screen out at the edge is difficult and can cause damage. Work smarter not harder. Enough said.
2. Do NOT “gently pry” the LCD unit from the digitizer assembly as the video says ( you’ll understand when you get to that point in the video. That’s how I broke mine. The LCD is held in place primarily by the metal rails on the side from which you remove the screws. If it’s stuck there as mine was, prying will damage and “gentle prying” just won’t do it. You need to pry it apart at the rails using a very small flathead screwdriver or something like it. Do NOT wedge the case opener tool under the LCD and pry up. You will damage it that way.
3. I used a regular hair dryer to heat the adhesive attaching the glass digitizer to the plastic frame and it worked great. Just go slow and don’t force it too much.
4. To reassemble the phone, I just reversed the process…

With all of this, it’s OK (advisable) to take your time – better to go slow and be extra careful than damage other parts and cost yourself more money (like me). Any way, hope this helps. Oh yeah, and I’m not responsible for any damage that you do to your phone. You peform this repair AT YOUR OWN RISK. Have fun!