What to do with a broken Galaxy S3?

[CJBall]

I have an S3 that the touch screen does not work on. I want to know what I CAN do with it.

Everything else on it seems to work except touch. I got the phone from the trash and I am just seeing if you guys have any ideas.

I would be very interested if there is some way to sink a Bluetooth controller to it and turn it into an emulator.

I am OK with rooting, flashing, hardware modding or anything. Lead me down the rabbit hole. I want to get my hands dirty and this phone is trash unless it gets re-purposed.

EDIT also this is my first expedition into messing with a phone, but it's something I wanted to learn. I am no stranger to SSH or command line. I just figure messing with a free broken phone as my first foray into this is better than messing with my personal phone.

 

[CJBall]

does bumping happen here or do we just stare silently and hope?

 

[thatguy97]

Use it as drink coaster

Posted from my Nexus 7 2013 or Samsung galaxy S5

 

[CJBall]

well it does still light up so it would be a pretty snazzy coaster.

 

[Rukbat]

1) Bumping after less than a full day is frowned upon in most forums.

2) You could hope to find another one, this time with a bad motherboard. Then you could make one working phone.

3) Plug the phone into your computer, using a USB cable. Run adb https://developer.android.com/tools/help/adb.html If USB debugging is enabled in the phone, you'll be able to get a shell (the shell command, of course), then you're in a Linux shell. (I won't insult you by telling you what to do next.)

4) To turn it into an emulator, first, Bluetooth would have to be enabled. You probably stand a 50% chance of that. (Many people don't use Bluetooth for anything, so they keep it off.) And you'd have to push (with adb) an emulator app into the phone, then install it (with adb) and write a shell script to run it at boot.

Or you could haunt a few independent repair shops and see how much you could bargain a screen replacement for. If you're thinking of using it as a phone eventually, call the carrier and ask if it's blacklisted (the IMEI, which you'll need, is on a label under the battery.) It''s possible that once the owner found out how much it costs to replace the screen, he decided to just buy a newer phone, and trashed this one - and it's still usable.

You could also sell it on ebay as a parts only phone. (Check the black listing anyway - a motherboard not on the blacklist is worth a lot more.) Or maybe trade it to a local repair shop for future whatevers. (I had a few people I dealt with like that back when I had my stores. As long as the phone was legitimate - not stolen - they'd get a free little repair ["little" repairs used to run about $50/hour] or a really deep discount on a phone or something like that.) Maybe even trade it for a working but older Android phone. You don't need much for an emulator.

There are many ways to skin this cat.

 

[analivia]

you shre great knowledeg gys

 

[Wizecture]

Like Rukbat said, you could try and get it repaired but if you're not interested in paying a lot of money you could sell it to organizations that buy phones that are not badly damaged.

 

[ronstoney]

I leave the back cover off of a backup Galaxy S4 that lost its touch functionality and have been using it as a battery charger (I always have fully charged batteries available). That's a pretty expensive battery charger --- I recommend you repair the phone if possible!

r

 

[gillberllt]

Open the phone to see if the sd card exists and insert it to your good phone.

 

[Shabadage]

You might try flashing a rom that has VNC enabled, then you can toggle settings and such from your computer. Alternatively, you could TRY using an ODB cable and plugging in a mouse to see what that gets you, I've been surprised more than once when I've plugged a mouse in and a cursor appeared.

 

[Gremmward]

Put music on it, and maybe you could find a music app that'll let you change songs by using the volume buttons. You'd prolly have to install the app remotely. I know with my s3 and s4 whenever I plugged headphones in, the music started to play.

 

[Luzy_Borgia]

Store it somewhere, it will be an antique in a mere 60 years or so. ;-)

 

[kristenelaine1991]

I have actually seen quite a few people selling old S3's on ebay. Maybe you could sell it on craigslist or ebay. Maybe people could use them for parts. Also there is always the little kiosks that buy old phones.