Hopefully the third phone screen replacement will be the last
In July 2021 I replaced my broken mobile phone display for the first time. A few weeks later I dropped my phone again and the display cracked again. I lived with them until March 2023 when things got worse and I had to replace the display for the second time.
Already on March 30th it was broken again. The cell phone was lying on the covers and fell out of bed when I got up, with the edge on something hard. The rubber cover that I tried to protect it with from the start doesn’t protrude far enough over the display on the front, not before and especially not since the phone got a bit thicker due to my repairs and all the sneaker glue more.
In Tech Diary chat, I write, “I’d like to ditch the whole display concept forever and go back to Aleks’ ‘rectangular brick cell phone’ concept.”
However, on May 25th I will order a replacement display. “In any case, it’s good that I didn’t replace it again during the first jumps because I dropped it again afterwards and broke it even more,” I write in the chat.
I don’t want to install this replacement screen until I find a better phone case, one that also protects the front. Because what I didn’t know at first: You probably won’t be able to glue in such a replacement display without tension (i.e. completely flat) and probably not in such a way that it doesn’t protrude a tiny bit higher over the cell phone than when it was new. (Both are due to stubborn adhesive residue from the original display.) This means that if the phone falls on its front or edge when dropped, it will break even more readily than it already did.
The search for a new cover turns out to be tedious. I don’t want a flip case because I look at my phone every few seconds and then spend half the day just opening it. “So idiotic that ‘heavy duty’ for mobile phone cases only means ‘tractor tire design on the backside, which is not at all vulnerable anyway’,” I write in the chat. But then I found a solution:
ALT
The cell phone ring in the middle of the back is not included; I took it off the previous case and stuck it on the new one.
The new case makes the phone very ugly and so bulky that it barely fits in your pocket, but other than that I find it compelling. Finally, a thick, protruding edge also protects the front.
Then I replace the display for the third time. Now I don’t even have to check Instructables how to do it, and I’m not too worried about breaking anything in the process. As with the second time, 90% of the work is rolling off the sneaker glue to make even glue surfaces. And I hope it’s quiet now.
(Kathrin Passig)