My Galaxy S5 has a broken screen, display still works fine. Can I fix this on my own?

[AC Question]

Galaxy S5 broken screen, display still works fine.

While in it's Otterox my phone fell from my stroller. The glass screen is cracked across the entire phone; however the display still works completely fine. There are no lines or dots or anything else wrong.

I would like to know in replacing the screen; can I purchase just the glass, or will I need to purchase the entire LCD and digitizer assembly?

The difference is about $140 between the two.

 

[Rukbat]

Re: Galaxy S5 broken screen, display still works fine.

You can just replace the glass/digitizer assembly - but it's the "you" part that's the problem. You have to evenly heat each half of the old glass to within a few degrees of the right temperature to remove it. A few degrees too cool and you'll tear the screen under it. a few degrees too hot and you'll damage the screen. Most people who try to do it themselves end up buying a new screen, trying to replace that themselves, then bringing the phone to a shop and having it repaired - and the cost is about the same as a good used phone of the same model.

Save yourself time, money, frustration, etc., and let a shop replace the glass. (In my shops you had to do 6 replacements without a mistake [which is why we saved phones it didn't pay to repair; they're like cadavers in medical school - you can't kill a corpse[ before you could do one - under direct supervision - on a customer's phone. It took the average tech between 10 and 12 screens to get 6 right.)