Self-Repair Tips For Your Broken Smartphone

Everyone has dozens of uses for their smartphone and walking around without one is strange. That’s why when your phone breaks, it’s a complete disaster. Thankfully, some hardware repairs aren’t that complicated. Eric Ravenscraft at LifeHacker explained some common repairs that you can perform on your smartphone yourself.

• Broken Screen

If you take the time to notice, it’s amazing how many people are walking around with cracked and broken screens on their smartphones. The cost and difficult of fixing your screen varies greatly from one device to another. For some phones, the glass is fused with the digitizer, which is how your smartphone interprets you tapping on the screen. If these two components are fused together, repairing and replacing them is much more expensive. Replacing the glass alone is much simpler and much cheaper, but it still requires a nearly complete disassembling of your phone.

• Headphone Jack

Another common problem with smartphones is how easily the headphone jack breaks. Particularly if you use headphones with your phone while you exercise, there’s a good chance your headphone jack will break because there is a lot of stress being placed on the contact points. Replacing the jack itself isn’t overly difficult. The difficult part is getting to the jack. You’ll need to open your device, which ranges from needing to remove a few screws to nearly impossible for devices with unibody constructions.

• Broken Buttons

Much like headphone jacks, buttons on your phone have plenty of stress on them over months of use. Eventually, they get loose or stuck and cease functioning. Again, you’ll need to open your smartphone to get access to broken buttons, which is by far the most difficult part of the repair. Depending on what button is broken, you may not need a hardware fix at all. There are software workarounds that may make that particular button obsolete.

• Camera Replacement

Thankfully, the camera unit in smartphones rarely breaks. But occasionally, if a phone is dropped just right, the lens can crack. In other cases, internal camera sensors can experience problems too. Replacing broken glass may not require removing the entire camera assembly, depending on the device. This makes the repair much easier. For other issues, you’ll need to once again open your phone, then disconnect the a cable from the camera and remove it from the motherboard to replace it.

For any smartphone problem you’re attempting to fix yourself, you’ll need the right set of tools. This includes specialty screwdrivers and a tool to help you pry open the screen. You’ll also need a guide to your specific smartphone that helps you locate the hardware you’re replacing and details how to get to it. Understanding how difficult a smartphone is to repair is good to know before you purchase a new phone, also.

If you’d rather leave it to the professionals, bring your broken smartphone to Geek Rescue or call us at 918-369-4335.